Ukert crater mystery

As far as weird things on the moon go, Ukert crater is right up there. It forms an equilateral triangle and has been dismissed by experts as being a naturally formed landmark. All in all that's all interesting and might have passed by me as another anomaly to have a think about and reflect on why NASA does not investigate these things further or release their findings more. But when I was browsing around google's moon maps to the Ukert crater, I discovered that a small area to the northeast of it was blurred out. Why? what's hiding under this blur? Strange landmarks? Signs of intelligent construction or activity? None of these questions can be answered because this area is blurred out! Now that just makes me more intent on finding what's there.

why blur me out?

I don't see anything blurred out, at least not in the link to google moon you provide. The resolution with google moon isn't great. Exactly where in the crater are you referring to? Do you have any other links that show this supposed blurred section?

Whoops!

sorry I was using a bigger resolution browser and the maps align to the left. I picked the right...
here it is

wow the "Link to this page" link in google maps doesn't let you link to that location !.

click the link above.
grab-and-drag the map to the right about 1500 km about 400 km down- there it is

now click "Link to this page" in google maps. open a new browser, paste in the link you got and it takes you to a different place.. or is it just me?



[edit on 21-2-2008 by FlakeMaker]

I've looked at it in google moon, but what I'm saying is I don't see any blurred area in the crater. Maybe you can take a screen cap and highlight it or something?

If you just type Ukert Crater in the search it brings you to it.

It's certainly an oddly triangular crater, but I don't see it as being blurred out.

There is a blurry patch to the northeast of it but I assumed it was a gap in the photo-mosaic.

as people are looking in this thread at the google moon map, does anyone know what those wierd shaped blob things are when you click to find apollo 11? (make sure the apollo tab is clicked in the top right and then find the area where 11 is and you will see them)

Google Moon is based on Clementine dataset.
The pixellations, blur/stretching effects are the result of the first image manipulation:
If you make a comparison between Clementine Lunar Image Browser 1.5 ( www.nrl.navy.mil... ) and Clementine Lunar Map 2.0 (Beta) www.nrl.navy.mil... you will notice that there's a different appearance in every single feature.
Frankly i didn't notice blurred areas near that specific crater,
but here you can take a look at this better res image of Ukert crater.

IMHO, google moon is the worst media available in order to look at Moon formations: the resolution sucks and besides there are the issues mentioned above, but that's just my opinion.
The best images available so far can be found here:
www.mapaplanet.org...

[edit on 22/2/2008 by internos]

Ok. I thought I was going loopy and maybe I am. I am a n00b after all

But this are is both consistently and consistently not there. I realize it's based on the Clementine set so similar areas are missing, but these are only roughly the same. Where there is a perfect image of one area is missing from different filters..




Especially in the last two.
Also the areas immediately to the south east and north west of the missing patch are look almost artificial too. There is a lot of linear activity that seems unnatural.



[edit on 24-2-2008 by FlakeMaker]

reply to post by FlakeMaker


This one is a nice observation: in this case too, the data is missing from the original dataset:
now, the images that you have posted come from:

1) Clementine Greyscale Basemap (after the first manipulation, so the image has been "stretched" in order to fit the area)

2) Clementine - UVVIS Multispectral Mosaic

3) Clementine Greyscale Basemap (after the second manipulation, so the images have been left unaltered, and where data is missing all that we see is a black area).

You can notice that the same issue is vsible even in Clementine -NIR
Multispectral Mosaic:



Basically, we have the same missing/bad data that has been acquired by different devices and that has been handled in different ways:
in this comparison you can see what's the difference between google Moon result and Clementine Lunar Map 2.0:

The United States Geological Survey, Flagstaff, created a large image (10800 pixels by 5400 pixels) of the Moon by calibrating, sizing, and tiling together thousands of images that were collected by the spacecraft Clementine.
This is why the image shows both sides of the Moon and is so detailed. This was produced shortly after Clementine orbited the Moon.

www.cmf.nrl.navy.mil...

So i guess that the brurred areas appeared after the "tiling" process.
Now, i have no idea what could have determined the missing of those data, but i know that is an issue that affected many areas: see example.

CLEMENTINE INSTRUMENTS
Clementine carried four cameras, including one with a laser ranging system. The spacecraft also had two star tracker cameras, used mainly for altitude determination but also as wide-field cameras for various scientific and operational purposes. All sensors on the spacecraft met or exceeded expectations in their performance.

Clementine's imaging cameras are similar to LANDSAT multispectral data for Earth.
Both measure reflected solar radiation, and both acquire data through several different bandpasses (filters). Each bandpass was carefully selected to cover parts of the spectrum for which surface materials exhibit known variations. In the case of Clementine, filters were assigned to observe areas in the visible and near-infrared spectrum that are sensitive to variations in bulk mineralogy (principally the abundance of iron-bearing silicates) and the cumulative amount of soil maturity.

Star Tracker Camera
The Star Tracker provides an inertial reference for the spacecraft by comparison of star field images with an onboard star map. Two of these cameras were flown on the Clementine Mission. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

Ultraviolet/Visible Camera
This medium resolution camera uses CCD technology and operates in the near- ultraviolet and visible region of the spectrum. Combined with a six-position spectral filter wheel, this sensor was designed for mineralogical studies of the Moon. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

Near Infrared Camera
This camera provided images in the 1-3 micrometer wavelength region at medium resolution. Combined with a six-position spectral filter wheel, this camera was used for mineralogical studies. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

High Resolution Camera
This camera operated at visible wavelengths with CCD technology combined with an image intensifier and a six-position spectral filter wheel. It provided higher-resolution images free from spacecraft motion blur. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

LIDAR System
This system was used to obtain altitude measurements during mapping orbits around the Moon. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

Long Wave Infrared Camera
This lightweight camera operated in the thermal infrared region of the spectrum.
It was used to measure the thermal emission from the Moon. [Instrument Details at NSSDC]

www.lpi.usra.edu...

If all the data coming from all these instruments have been sent
contemporaneously, then pheraps it could have been a data transmission issue; if the data have been sent in different times, then pheraps it has been a problem encountered while acquiring the data. But as said, i really don't know why the data is missing.
What i know for sure is that if they were interested in hiding something, they had many better solutions than simply blur/darken areas, so i tend to rule out the conspiracy theory: this has been most likely a simple technical issue, IMHO (of course i may be wrong).
Anyway, here's the same area from lunar orbiter mosaic:

The linear activity is due the fact that the images have been taken at "stripes" (the lines between the stripes are more visible in the lunar orbiter images, but they are also (less) visible in clementine ones: now, this specific area of the mosaic is not just composed by stripes, but even by irregularly shaped layers: more or less so (now the compression reduced the quality of the image so i don't know if all the features are visible):


Hope this helps.


[edit on 25/2/2008 by internos]

Thanks for that internos

Your deductive logic details astound me.

The 'series of lines' I was refering to was the road-like trails to the south east of Ukert:

this is a higher res version




They could be rescribed as river beds or trails from rolling boulders, but these trail definitely go up and down hills and are directional seemingly regardless of the landscape topography.

Then there's the structure to the west of these lines and to the near south east of Ukert (circled above)
Close up:

Outline:


Funnily enough that big black thing in the Clementine photos is gone from the lunar orbiter ones:







[edit on 25-2-2008 by FlakeMaker]

reply to post by FlakeMaker


Yes, now i see what you mean.

These are two different topics;
about the one regarding the series of lines, i guess that we are in front of a rilley (i guess more a Rimæ, or a rilley system)
/2kd4xx

But about the formation that you pointed out, i have to say that there are some geometric shapes, or at least straight lines.

It's a nice find that suggests me that you "have a good eye".
I fear that the data presently available to the public won't give us more infos about it, imho, but pheraps, when Kaguya Selene's submeter res images will be available, we'll be able to spot something more there

Thanks!

Yea I hope that higher res (and unaltered) images come to light one of these days!

Thanks for your input here, it's been awesome!

:keeps looking at pixelated poops:

I can no longer get the Clementine Lunar Image Browser page to load at all!!! Is it just me, my browser seems to be working fine and i remember visiting the page a few years back, i recently decided to do some more research and surprise surprise the site by the looks has been taken down..

FREE THE KNOWLEDGE AND HELP FREE THE EARTH!!!!!!

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
I can no longer get the Clementine Lunar Image Browser page to load at all!!! Is it just me, my browser seems to be working fine and i remember visiting the page a few years back, i recently decided to do some more research and surprise surprise the site by the looks has been taken down..

FREE THE KNOWLEDGE AND HELP FREE THE EARTH!!!!!!

Maybe Clementine Lunar Image Browser 1.5 was discontinued, because it was replaced by Clementine Lunar Map 2.0 (Beta) .
The dataset is the same, but the result is way better than the one of Clementine Lunar Image Browser 1.5.
You might be interested in taking a look at Clementine UVVIS & NIR Multispectral Mosaics, definately way more detailed, and relatively easy to use

Edit: Clementine Lunar Image Browser 1.5 is working fine right now

[edit on 12/2/2009 by internos]