Reports indicate that in the early hours of April 21st, the world's premier collection of high-precision lunar geological maps was officially unveiled.
Crafted by a team of Chinese researchers, this collection is primarily based on data from the Chang'e lunar exploration missions, marking the highest level of precision achieved thus far in lunar geological mapping.
The album comprises two volumes: "1:2.5 Million Lunar Global Geological Map Album" and "1:2.5 Million Lunar Quadrangle Geological Map Album" (available in both Chinese and English, including accompanying manuals). Each map is scaled at 1:2.5 million and features a comprehensive lunar geological map (main image), distribution of lunar rock types, lunar structural outlines, and 30 standard lunar quadrangle geological maps.
The main map, "1:2.5 million Geological Map of the Moon," utilizes four primary colors – cyan, black, yellow, and magenta – overlaying to create a palette of 150 colors. This enables the geological division of the Moon into "Three Eras and Six Epochs," identifying and labeling 12,341 impact craters, 81 impact basins, 17 types of rocks, and 14 structural categories.
The atlas not only provides fundamental data and scientific references for the scientific objectives and engineering implementation of lunar exploration missions but also fills a gap in China's research on lunar and planetary geological maps, contributing to the study of lunar origin and evolution, and even the evolution of the solar system.
Currently, this atlas has been integrated into a digital lunar cloud platform established by Chinese scientists, serving lunar scientific research, science popularization education, as well as site selection, resource exploration, and path planning for China's future lunar exploration missions.
