The public was shown the best photos of the Moon taken from the Earth (4 photos)

Radar system, less powerful than household microwave oven, managed to take some of the best pictures of the moon ever observation history.







Using a radar beam less powerful than a microwave oven, researchers have obtained the highest resolution images of the moon, ever received from Earth.

Stunning new photos unveiled on January 10 during press conference at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, Washington, captured the landing site NASA's Apollo 15 mission, as well as the crater Tycho, formed in the result of a meteorite impact on the Southern Lunar Highlands.

Researchers took images with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) with a diameter of 100 meters, located in West Virginia. AT it is currently the world's largest steerable radio telescope (type telescope, designed in such a way that its dish can be directed to different parts of the sky). Patrick Taylor, head of Radar Department of the Green Bank Observatory and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), during a press briefing. He added that the Green-Back Telescope emitted radio waves that reached of the moon, and their reflection was recorded by four radio telescopes 25 meters wide in Hilo, Hawaii.





During image capture, experimental the radar device on the GBT emitted only 700 watts of power, which "comparable to a household appliance or a bunch of light bulbs," Taylor said. Tem however, he managed to capture even the smallest details around the landing site Apollo 15 up to 1.5 meters in size and in Tycho crater up to 5 meters, he added.



According to Taylor, the researchers also used this tool to collection of data on an asteroid with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer, which swept past our planet at a distance of more than five times greater than the distance from the earth to the moon. Because of its size and orbit the asteroid is characterized as potentially dangerous, but Taylor said that Currently, the object does not pose a danger to the Earth. device managed not only to see the asteroid, but also to characterize its size, speed, rotation, composition and how light scatters on it surface, and all this with the help of "radiation less powerful than your microwave,” Taylor emphasized.

Taylor and his team plan to develop a better version of the same device that could transmit about 700 times high power Such a system can be used to carry out geological research of the Moon and search for space debris around our natural satellite, as well as for searching and characterizing asteroids that could threaten our planet. This will allow the telescope in West Virginia to replace the famous Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, where the largest radio telescope previously worked, used for similar purposes until the laboratory was demolished in 2020.