The moon can have many more lunar craters than previously known

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Using artificial intelligence, Chinese scientists have estimated that there are more than 100,000 craters on the moon, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. This is much more than 9,137 officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union and detected largely using information and high-altitude images, the study shows.

The scientists, using data on 7,895 previously identified craters and 1,411 dated craters, were able to apply machine learning to train a deep neural network. With information from China’s first and second monthly orbits – Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 – the network has identified 109,956 new craters. The two unmanned spacecraft were launched in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

Using artificial intelligence, Chinese scientists have identified more than 109,000 previously unrecognized lunar craters on the moon's surface. The moon is presented here, as seen from Buenos Aires on December 21st.

“Impact craters (are) the most diagnostic features of the lunar surface. This is in stark contrast to the Earth’s surface. It is very difficult to trace the history of Earth, which has been affected by asteroids and comets in the last 4 billion years, “said the author of the study Chen Yang, from Jilin University College of Earth Sciences and the key lunar and deep space exploration laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Earth and the moon have been hit by the same impact population over time, but large lunar craters have experienced limited degradation over billions of years. Therefore, lunar impact craters can track the evolution of the Earth,” he said. she said by e-mail.

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Craters on the Moon lack water, atmosphere, and tectonic plate activity – three forces that erode the Earth’s surface, meaning that all but the most recent meteorological effects are not visible.

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According to the Lunar Planetary Institute, about 80% of the Earth’s surface is less than 200 million years old, while over 99% of the moon’s surface is over 3 billion years old. The age of a large crater can also be determined by counting how many small craters are inside it.

The latest study is not the first to conduct machine learning to detect lunar craters, said Mohamad Ali-Dib of the University of Montreal’s Exoplanet Research Institute.

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He was part of a team at the University of Toronto Scarborough that used data from a laser altimeter, a device used on board satellites orbiting the planet to map the terrain, rather than optical images used by the Chinese team to detect craters. . The UT team identified approximately 6,000 previously unidentified craters on the moon in research published in 2018.

“Machine learning can be used to detect craters on the moon,” he said in an email. Craters are “a window to the dynamic history of the solar system.

China became only the third country in the world to successfully collect rocks from the moon when the unmanned Chang’e-5 mission returned to Earth in mid-December, carrying the country’s first monthly samples.

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