How to find sun illumination conditions on the surface?
Answers
Recent remote sensing data strongly suggest
that deposits of ice occur in permanently shadowed regions
at the lunar poles. Clementine, by providing the first contiguous
coverage of the Moon, has enabled the production of
an illumination map of the south pole. This map shows the
extent of the areas of permanent darkness during winter in
this region as well as identifying places on the lunar surface
that receive illumination for more than 50% of the lunar
day. The permanently dark areas are prime candidates for
locations of ice deposits while regions that are illuminated
for anomalous periods are possible sites for lunar bases. In
this paper we study in detail the illumination history during
a lunar day of some of these sites. While we find no area
that receives permanent illumination, we do find two areas,
only 10 km apart, which collectively receive sunlight for over
98% of the time.