Moon

The USGS Astrogeology Science Center conducts research on caves. In particular, we are interested in the physics of caves, which involves the application of the principles of heat transfer, mass transfer and meteorology to understand how cave climates evolve. We are also interested in caves on other planetary bodies and moons, and how they may be used as resources for future missions.

The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Science Center (ASC) recently established the Terrestrial Analogs for Research and Geologic Exploration Training (TARGET) program. This service-oriented program is built around the recognition that the Earth is a fundamental training ground for human and robotic planetary exploration, and that ASC is in a unique position in northern Arizona with...

Click on the links below to explore USGS Astrogeology Center's involvement in the Apollo program and lunar legacy:

Presented here are variety of data selected from a collection of data commonly referred to as the Lunar Consortium Data. This pre-Clementine data set consists of products derived from Apollo, Lunar Orbiter, Galileo, and Zond 8 missions. Select data collected from Earth-based observations are also included as part of this collection.

The Astrogeology Team at USGS provides coordination of NASA's planetary geologic mapping program. Geologic mapping investigations of any imaged planetary body (except Earth) are proposed to NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program on an annual basis (generally due sometime between late April and early June) and then reviewed by the Lunar and Planetary Geoscience Review Panel. USGS map...

The USGS Lunar Calibration project hosts a system to use the Moon as a reference light source for sensor radiometric calibration and stability monitoring. This capability was developed for solar reflective wavelengths, primarily to meet the on-orbit calibration needs of remote sensing imaging instruments. However, the lunar calibration technique is applicable to any solar-wavelength sensor that...

The USGS Astrogeology Science Center is host to the lead science component  of the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node (IMG) of the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS). A partner facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) provides engineering support and technical management for the IMG. The IMG is a PDS science discipline node that manages an archive of more than 1500 TB in a growing...