While we're on the subject of impact sites, has anyone ever found a definitive LRO image of Apollo 14's 'Antares' impact location? I've been trying to track down impact sites in Apollo photographs and this one is a bit of a conundrum.
The Apollo 14 PSR gives a location for the impact based on triangulating results from the seismic stations left behind of -3.42 -19.67 and helpfully includes a labelled photograph.
However, the coordinates of the location given on the diagram are nowhere near what it is pointing to, which is more like -3.72 -21.46!
Here's the picture from my own copy of it, as the online ones aren't that great:
So, there's the first bit of confusion.
The second bit of confusion comes from the Apollo 16 PSR, which also discusses man made impacts, and shows what it claims is a detail of the Antares' impact as seen in Metric Image AS16-M-2512. Here's a section of it from the ASU's site rotated to match the view in the PSR. The quote from the PSR says "The Apollo 14 LM ascent stage impact location showing dark ejecta blanket at large phase angle".
The PSR isn't specific, but from the way the image is presented I believe it is referring to the impact crater in that I've outlined with a red square, and whose co-ordinates roughly match those given. The problem is that I think it very unlikely that this is Antares.
When you look at the LRO's shots on that area there aren't any high quality views (that I've found) that are helpful. Chandrayaan covers the area reasonably well, and here is it's view of that precise area:
By looking at the locations of the other craters in the Apollo 16 Metric camera image, I believe that the crater it is picking out is the bright and obviously fresh impact crater, complete with dark rays just off the centre line of the image. Here's the same area of the Metric image, stretched and rotated to compensate for the angle and compared with the same location in Chandrayaan so you can check my logic!
The problem with this crater is that is 50 metres across, and a report I read suggested 4m +/-2 was more likely.
More importantly, it can also be seen in an Apollo 12 photograph (AS12-54-8087). Here's the relevant bit of that Apollo 12 image covering the same area, with some level adjustment and sharpening:
The dark smudge in Chandrayaan's photo west of the bright crater is also discernible and is actually a shallow crater, as is more obvious on this LRO image:
The cross marks the location of the bright impact crater.
I also think that while the Panoramic Camera might have been able to resolve a 4m crater, I think it's a stretch to suggest the Metric camera could resolve that level of detail, particularly at that angle!
Or am I looking at the wrong crater again?
