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Science 16 December 1994:
Vol. 266. no. 5192, pp. 1839 - 1843
DOI: 10.1126/science.266.5192.1839
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Articles

The Shape and Internal Structure of the Moon from the Clementine Mission

Maria T. Zuber 1, David E. Smith 2, Frank G. Lemoine 3, and Gregory A. Neumann 4

1 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA, and Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
2 Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
3 Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, and Astronomy Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
4 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Global topographic and gravitational field models derived from data collected by the Clementine spacecraft reveal a new picture of the shape and internal structure of the moon. The moon exhibits a 16-kilometer range of elevation, with the greatest topographic excursions occurring on the far side. Lunar highlands are in a state of near-isostatic compensation, whereas impact basins display a wide range of compensation states that do not correlate simply with basin size or age. A global crustal thickness map reveals crustal thinning under all resolvable lunar basins. The results indicate that the structure and thermal history of the moon are more complex than was previously believed.

Submitted on July 25, 1994
Accepted on November 1, 1994


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Clementine Observations of the Aristarchus Region of the Moon.
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