NASA picture is best yet of a permanently shadowed region on the moon

A new ShadowCam device sends back the first images from the moon’s orbit, showing the interior of a region of the moon that receives no direct sunlight.

To Leah Crane

We had the best view ever of areas of the Moon where sunlight never reaches. These permanently shadowed regions lie inside craters and depressions near the Moon’s poles, and because the Moon’s axis of rotation is tilted by only about 1.5 degrees, they remain dark and cold year-round.

The Moon has more than 300 known Permanent Shadow Regions (PSRs), but they are always dark, making it very difficult to observe what is going on inside. That’s the goal of NASA’s Moon-orbiting ShadowCam instrument aboard the Korean Pathfinder lunar orbiter, also known as Danuri.

Danuri entered lunar orbit on December 16, 2022, and ShadowCam sent back the first images. The photograph shows an area about 2000 meters wide within the Shackleton crater near the south pole of the Moon.

This first image didn’t come as a surprise, but it does demonstrate that the camera does what researchers expect, said Mark Robinson, principal investigator of ShadowCam and of Arizona State University. Near the top of the image, there is evidence of a rock approximately 5 meters in diameter worn away as it tumbles down the sloping walls of the crater.

ShadowCam is 200 times more sensitive than the cameras previously used to observe PSR as it orbits the Moon aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Its high sensitivity allows it to peer into these dark areas using only a small amount of sunlight bouncing off the surrounding landscape.

The Shackleton crater portion of this image is warmer than the rest of the PSR, regularly exceeding the -163°C temperature required to keep water ice stable on the Moon. But other colder PSRs, and possibly even colder regions of the same crater, are thought to host ice and frost, which could be useful for future missions to the Moon.

Over the next year or so, ShadowCam will observe all known PSRs, says Robinson. I’m looking for lunar ice. If lunar ice is lurking in the shadows, this camera should be able to find it.

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