Smooth Floor in Copernicus Crater

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Caption:

With the exception of recent impacts (such as this one) into the floor material of Copernicus, much of the northwestern floor of Copernicus appears smooth and relatively featureless (upper right corner). This region on the crater floor appears similar to mare basalt flows, but studies show that volcanism has not shaped the landscape of Copernicus' interior. Instead, it is possible that a vast volume of impact melt was created during impact and cooled differentially across the crater floor such that some areas appear smooth while others are hummocky. LROC NAC M135317661L, image width is 520 meters (1706 feet).

Background Info:

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data.

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