• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.333-336
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• 2007

SELENE, a Japanese lunar mission, has been launched this year. There are large volumes of images that were already archived and will be archived by missions such as SELENE. Automatic image analysis systems, which extract useful information from large amounts of data, are now required. The authors propose Lunar Surface GIS, which archives lunar surface information collected by lunar orbiting spacecraft and conducts geological analysis automatically. This system includes automatic crater detection, automatic age determination, and lava thickness estimation methods. In this paper, methods for automatically determining the age and estimating the lava thickness of lunar mare are described. The lunar surface age was determined by analyzing data of detected crater size and number using a crater chronology method. Lava thickness was estimated by the extent of the overlying material around the crater as well as the composition of underlying terrain units. In this result, the age map at Mare Crisium suggests the mare had been formed 3.0-3.7 b.y. ago. The lava thickness result suggests the thickest part of the mare is distributed around the center of the mare. The Lunar Surface GIS can produce a geological map, age map, and mare lava thickness map, for example.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2014

Lava caves could be useful as outposts for the human exploration of the Moon. Lava caves or lava tubes are formed when the external surface of the lava flows cools more quickly to make a hardened crust over subsurface lava flows. The lava flow eventually ceases and drains out of the tube, leaving an empty space. The frail part of the ceiling of lava tube could collapse to expose the entrance to the lava tubes which is called a pit crater. Several pit craters with the diameter of around 100 meters have been found by analyzing the data of SELENE and LRO lunar missions. It is hard to use these pit craters for outposts since these are too large in scale. In this study, small scale pit craters which are fit for outposts have been investigated using the NAC image data of LROC. Several topographic patterns which are believed to be lunar caves have been found and the similar pit craters of the Earth were compared and analyzed to identify caves. For this analysis, the image data of satellites and aerial photographs are collected and classified to construct a database. Several pit craters analogous to lunar pit craters were derived and a morphological pit crater model was generated using the 3D printer based on this database.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.161-166
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• 2015

Analysis of lunar samples returned by the US Apollo missions revealed that the lunar highlands consist of anorthosite, plagioclase, pyroxene, and olivine; also, the lunar maria are composed of materials such as basalt and ilmenite. More recently, the remote sensing approach has enabled reduction of the time required to investigate the entire lunar surface, compared to the approach of returning samples. Moreover, remote sensing has also made it possible to determine the existence of specific minerals and to examine wide areas. In this paper, an investigation was performed on the reflectance distribution and its trend. The results were applied to the example of the double ray stretched in parallel lines from the Tycho crater to the third-quadrant of Mare Nubium. Basic research and background information for the investigation of lunar surface characteristics is also presented. For this research, resources aboard the SELenological and ENgineering Explorer (SELENE), a Japanese lunar probe, were used. These included the Multiband Imager (MI) in the Lunar Imager/Spectrometer (LISM). The data of these instruments were edited through the toolkit, an image editing and analysis tool, Exelis Visual Information Solution (ENVI).

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.131-148
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• 2023

Lunar permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) never see direct sunlight and are illuminated only by secondary illumination - light reflected from nearby topography. The ShadowCam imaging experiment onboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter is acquiring images of these PSRs. We characterize and discuss the nature of secondary illumination for the Shackleton PSR from ShadowCam radiance-calibrated images. We also use modeling to understand the magnitude and direction of the secondary illumination. Results from our analysis highlight the non-homogeneous, dynamic, and complex nature of PSR secondary lighting. Knowledge of the direction of the secondary illumination is crucial for reli-able interpretation of contrasts observed in ShadowCam images. This preliminary analysis of the floor of Shackleton crater from images acquired over multiple secondary illumination conditions does not reveal indications of exposed surface ice, even though temperatures are constantly below 110K.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.113-120
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• 2015

When humans explore the Moon, lunar caves will be an ideal base to provide a shelter from the hazards of radiation, meteorite impact, and extreme diurnal temperature differences. In order to ascertain the existence of caves on the Moon, it is best to visit the Moon in person. The Google Lunar X Prize(GLXP) competition started recently to attempt lunar exploration missions. Ones of those groups competing, plan to land on a pit of Lacus Mortis and determine the existence of a cave inside this pit. In this pit, there is a ramp from the entrance down to the inside of the pit, which enables a rover to approach the inner region of the pit. In this study, under the assumption of the existence of a cave in this pit, a 3D model was developed based on the optical image data. Since this model simulates the actual terrain, the rendering of the model agrees well with the image data. Furthermore, the 3D printing of this model will enable more rigorous investigations and also could be used to publicize lunar exploration missions with ease.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.138.2-138.2
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• 2012

Cave on the Moon is considered as the most appropriate place for human to live during the frontier lunar exploration. While the lava flows, the outer crust gets cooled and solidified. Then, the empty space is remained inside after lava flow stops. Such empty space is called the lava caves. Those lava tubes on the Earth are formed mostly by volcanic activity. However, the lava tubes on satellite like Moon and planet like Mars without volcanic activity are mostly formed by the lava flow inside of the crater made by large meteorite impact. Some part of lava tube with collapsed ceiling appears as the entrance of the cave. Such area looks like a deep crater so called a pit crater. Four large pit craters with diameter of > 60 m and depth of > 40 m are found without difficulty from Kaguya and LRO mission image archives. However, those are too deep to use as easily accessible human frontier base. Therefore, now we are going to identify some smaller lunar caves with accessible entrances using LRO camera images of 0.5 m/pixel resolution. Earth's lava caves and their entrances are well photographed by surface and aerial camera in immense volume. Thus, if the image data are sorted and archived well, those images can be used in comparison with the less distinct lunar cave and entrance images due to its smaller size. Then, we can identify the regions on the Moon where there exist caves with accessible entrances. The database will be also useful in modeling geomorphology for lunar and Martian caves for future artificial intelligence investigation of the caves in any size.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.49-63
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• 2021

The exploration of the solar system is carried out through various payloads, and accordingly, many research results are emerging. We tried to apply deep-learning as a method of studying the bodies of solar system. Unlike Earth observation satellite data, the data of solar system differ greatly from celestial bodies to probes and to payloads of each probe. Therefore, it may be difficult to apply it to various data with the deep-learning model, but we expect that it will be able to reduce human errors or compensate for missing parts. We have implemented a model that detects craters on the lunar surface. A model was created using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) image and the provided shapefile as input values, and applied to the lunar surface image. Although the result was not satisfactory, it will be applied to the image of the permanently shadow regions of the Moon, which is finally acquired by ShadowCam through image pre-processing and model modification. In addition, by attempting to apply it to Ceres and Mercury, which have similar the lunar surface, it is intended to suggest that deep-learning is another method for the study of the solar system.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.217-240
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• 2021

Upon the human exploration era of the Moon, this paper introduces lunar topography and geologic fundamentals to space scientists. The origin of scientific terminology for the lunar topography was briefly summarized, and the extension of the current Korean terminology is suggested. Specifically, we suggest the most representative lunar topography that are useful to laymen as 1 ocean (Oceanus Procellarum), 10 maria (Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranuillitatis, Mare Nectaris, Mare Fecundatis, Mare Crisium, Mare Vaporium, Mare Cognitum, Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium), 6 great craters (Tyco, Copernicus, Kepler, Aristachus, Stebinus, Langrenus). We also suggest Korean terms for highland, maria, mountains, crater, rille, rima, graben, dome, lava tube, wrinkle ridge, trench, rupes, and regolith. In addition, we introduce the standard model for the lunar interior and typical rocks. According to the standard model on the basis of historical impact events, the lunar geological eras are classified as Pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Erathostenesian, and Copernican in chronologic order. Finally, we summarize the latest discovery records on the water on the Moon, and introduce the concept of water extraction from the lunar soil, which is to be developed by the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.45.3-46
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• 2015

Space weathering agents such as micrometeoroids and solar wind particles continuously age the uppermost regolith of the lunar surface by comminuting as well as darkening and reddening. Among several maturity indices, we investigate median grain size () and optical maturity (OMAT) of the crater rim walls. Crater rim wall is the most immature place among the impact crater features because the vertical mixing process by mass-movement can enhance the gardening of regolith and the supply of immature materials in the deeper layer to the surface. More than 140 simple and complex craters were considered. Both and OMAT values of the inner rim wall initially increase as the crater size increases until ~10-20 km, then decrease. This transition crater size happens to correspond to the transition diameter from simple to complex craters. For larger craters, i.e., complex craters, it is clear that the inner rim wall of the craters formed in recent eras tend to remain fresh and become mature along with time. For the simple crater case, smaller craters are more mature, which is opposite to the case of complex craters. This is thought to be because smaller craters become flattened more quickly, thus have smaller vertical mixing in the regolith due to mass-movement. We will also discuss on the maturity indices of the crater rim walls at high latitudes as a function of the position angle to see the latitude dependence of the space weathering process.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.859-865
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• 2018

A construction of infrastructures and base station on the moon could be undertaken by linking with the regions where construction materials and energy could be supplied on site. It is necessary to detect craters on the lunar surface and gather their topological information in advance, which forms permanent shaded regions (PSR) in which rich ice deposits might be available. In this study, an effective method for automatic detection of lunar craters on the moon surface is taken into consideration by employing a latest version of deep-learning algorithm. A training of a deep-learning algorithm is performed by involving the still images of 90000 taken from the LRO orbiter on operation by NASA and the label data involving position and size of partly craters shown in each image. the Faster RCNN algorithm, which is a latest version of deep-learning algorithms, is applied for a deep-learning training. The trained deep-learning code was used for automatic detection of craters which had not been trained. As results, it is shown that a lot of erroneous information for crater's positions and sizes labelled by NASA has been automatically revised and many other craters not labelled has been detected. Therefore, it could be possible to automatically produce regional maps of crater density and topological information on the moon which could be changed through time and should be highly valuable in engineering consideration for lunar construction.