Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: Jinzhu Ji. et al.

China has made available what it terms as “the first 1:2,500,000-scale global geologic map of the Moon.”

Published in the Science Bulletin (August 15, 2022), the map provides a state-of-the-art illustration of impact basins, craters, rocks, and structures of lunar surface, which reveals the geological processes and evolution of the Moon.

“For further investigation and to make the best use of the map, the geodatabases of the map will be publicly accessible,” according to lead author of the paper, Jinzhu Ji, a lecturer at School of Mining, Inner Mongolia University of Technology and visiting scholar at Center for Lunar and Planetary Science, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Credit: Jinzhu Ji. et al.

Unprecedented integrative product

“As unprecedented integrative product of lunar exploration results, the 1:2,500,000-scale lunar geologic map will play important role in the scientific study of the Moon and lunar exploration in the future,” Jinzhu and colleagues explain.

“With 10 years of endeavors, the experience we learned from this lunar mapping project lays the foundation for mapping other planets,” the research team adds.

To access the paper — “The 1:2,500,000-scale geologic map of the global Moon” — go to:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095927322002316?via%3Dihub