Citizen scientists who are interested in the Moon can find a wide range of activities. Whatever your level of ability, resources, and interest, there is a citizen-science activity you can participate in.
Moon Zoo
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is now in orbit around the Moon, returning images of the lunar surface in unprecedented detail. Through the Moon Zoo website, you can learn how to interpret LRO images, have the images delivered to your computer, and become part of the LRO team. Moon Zoo provides two activities, Crater Survey and Boulder Wars.
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Moon Mappers
Moon Mappers is another site where citizen scientists are helping identify craters in LRO data. Moon Mappers has a man-versus-machine competition, where you pit your crater-matching skills against computer algorithms. The results of your work will be used by computer scientists to improve the crater-matching algorithms. This provides you with an opportunity to contribute to machine learning as well as lunar science.
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Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project
If you’re interested in a more self-directed project, NASA’s Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project has created a portal and tools you can use to search, view, and analyze lunar images and other digital products. The LMMP provides a one-stop shop for lunar data. Using the LMMP web portal, you can download and overlay the latest LRO data including surface imagery, altimetry, spectral reflectance, temperature, and lighting data. You can also access data from past US missions (Apollo, Lunar Orbiter, Lunar Prospector, and Clementine) and foreign missions (Kaguya and Chandrayaan).
Available data includes image mosaics, digital elevation models, gravity models, local hazard assessment maps of slope, surface roughness, crater and boulder distribution, and resource maps such as soil maturity, hydrogen abundance, and other elemental abundances.
LLMP also provides two tools for visualization, manipulation, and analysis of data. Lunar Mapper is a light weight, web-based geographic analysis client. ILIADS (Integrated Lunar Information Architecture for Decision Support application) is a desktop geospatial information system.
Citizen-science projects can use LLMP data in many ways. Some of the possibilities include evaluation and selection of potential landing sites for future missions, design and placement of landers and bases, design of rovers, development of terrain-relative navigation systems, assessment and planning of scientific traverses, scientific analysis and discovery, and integration of lunar data into classroom activities and educational curriculum.
Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observation, Transient Phenomena, and Topographical Studies
If you have access to a telescope with a diameter of 8 inches or larger, you can join the Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observation Program, which is run by NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office and the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers. The Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observation Program observes and records flashes from meteoroid impacts on the surface of the Moon. Impact events have played a dominant role in the formation of the Moon’s surface and are believed to be sources for the tenuous lunar atmosphere and lunar dust environment.
The Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers was founded in 1947 to foster collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers. ALPO collects and coordinates amateur observations of planets, their satellites, comets, and meteors.
In addition to the Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observation Program, ALPO’s Lunar Section has two other programs. The Lunar Transient Phenomenon Program looks for mysterious short-lived changes in the Moon’s appearance such as lights, glows, mists, and obscurations. The Topographic Studies and Selected Areas Program studies bright and banded craters, dark haloed craters, bright rays, surface swellings known as lunar domes, and changes in the albedo of selected features.
For join one of these programs, contact the ALPO Lunar Section.
GRAIL MoonKAM
Each of the two GRAIL probes, dubbed Ebb and Flow, carries four MoonKAM cameras. Three cameras with wide-angle lenses look forward, backward, and down. One camera with a telephoto lens looks down. The MoonKAM project, which began March 12, allows fifth-to-eighth-grade students to select target areas and request MoonKAM images of those areas using a web browser interface. The mission has now been extended.
Details on the MoonKAM project are available here. Interested schools can register here.
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