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Concept
Shackleton (crater)
Summary
Shackleton is an impact crater that lies at the lunar south pole. The peaks along the crater's rim are exposed to almost continual sunlight, while the interior is perpetually in shadow. The low-temperature interior of this crater functions as a cold trap that may capture and freeze volatiles shed during comet impacts on the Moon. Measurements by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft showed higher than normal amounts of hydrogen within the crater, which may indicate the presence of water ice. The crater is named after Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.
The rotational axis of the Moon passes through Shackleton, near the rim. The crater is in diameter and deep. From the Earth, it is viewed edge-on in a region of rough, cratered terrain. It is located within the South Pole–Aitken basin on a massif. The rim is slightly raised about the surrounding surface and it has an outer rampart that has been only lightly impacted. No significant craters intersect the rim, and it is sloped about 1.5° toward the direction 50–90° from the Earth. The age of the crater is about 3.6 billion years and it has been in the proximity of the south lunar pole for at least the last two billion years.
Because the orbit of the Moon is tilted only 5° from the ecliptic, the interior of this crater lies in perpetual darkness. Estimates of the area in permanent shadow were obtained from Earth-based radar studies. Peaks along the rim of the crater are almost continually illuminated by sunlight, spending about 80–90% of each lunar orbit exposed to the Sun. Continuously illuminated mountains have been termed peaks of eternal light and have been predicted to exist since the early nineteenth century.
The shadowed portion of the crater was imaged with the Terrain Camera of the Japanese SELENE spacecraft using the illumination of sunlight reflected off the rim. The interior of the crater consists of a symmetrical 30° slope that leads down to a diameter floor. The handful of craters along the interior span no more than a few hundred meters.
Official source
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