Visualizations by
Tom Bridgman
Released on February 27, 2019
Much of the Moon's darker-colored 'mare' regions are considered to be older than the lighter-colored mountainous regions. Yet the maria contain a number of ligher-colored regions, such as Reiner Gamma. Why could that be? Many of these lighter regions in the maria appear to correspond to locations of magnetic anomalies which provides a hint for testing various hypotheses.
It is known that the influx of free protons from the solar wind will darken the lighter lunar material. This visualization is created from a particle simulation which illustrates how a local magnetic field may create regions of reduced and enhanced solar proton flux which can lighten and darken (respectively) the underlying lunar material.
Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer Andrew Poppe (University of California at Berkeley): Lead Scientist Genna Duberstein (USRA): Lead Producer Ernie Wright (USRA): Visualizer Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support
Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio