Chinese Space Administration creates ‘highest scale’ geological map of the Moon

Australia’s astronomer-at-large, Fred Watson, discusses China’s new high-resolution map of the Moon. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has released the highest-resolution geological maps of the Moon ever produced. The map features more than 12,000 craters and has caught the interest of governments and big mining companies which would like to know exactly what minerals are on the Moon. “It at a scale of one to two and a half million, which is the highest scale yet of any map of the moon,” Mr Watson told Sky News Australia. “It uses data from the Chang’e 1 mission an orbiting spacecraft launched by the Chinese Space Administration, coupled with lunar reconnaissance orbiter images, which is a NASA spacecraft. “Over 10 years, 100 Chinese scientists have poured over this data to put together this really elegant and very very useful geological map of the moon.”