Clementine Moon Maps

In 1994, the Clementine spacecraft spent 70 days orbiting the moon to make detailed maps. The science payload included ultraviolet, visible light, infrared and high resolution cameras, and a LIDAR laser transmitter to measure surface topography. Here are links to products of that mission.

Coordinate Systems

Farside	Nearside West	Nearside East	Farside

One challenge for the beginner is that there are several coordinate systems in use for locating features on the moon. The image above, from JPL's Planetary Image Atlas goes from 0 to 360 degrees increasing to the East, or right. But the Clementine Lunar Image Browser goes from 0 to 360 degrees increasing to the West, or left. Other maps may go from -180 to 180, or 180 West to 180 East. The only longitudes common to all of these systems are zero at the center of the nearside and 180 is the center of the farside.

Many planetary data sets use positive longitude west coordinates, although positive longitude east coordinates are more common in recent work. Make sure you check the coordinate system used by whatever resource you choose.

Lunar Feature Locator

• Lunar Feature Locator
  Enter the name of a crater or other feature on the moon, and get its map coordinates. (This uses positive longitude east coordinates, like those found in The Geologic History of the Moon.)
  
  

Online Resources

Crustal Thickness

• Crustal Thickness Data
  Crustal thickness at 1x1 degree resolution (in the gravity directory). This site includes ASCII data files that you could write a program to process.
  NOTE: This is merely a low-resolution model with some uncertainty. Do not base conclusions on this data alone.
  
  

Gravity

• Gravity Data
  Gravity anomalies and accelerations at 1x1 degree and 0.25x0.25 degree resolutions. This site includes ASCII data files that you could write a program to process.
  NOTE: Better gravity data should be available from the subsequent Lunar Prospector mission.
  
  

Images in ultraviolet, visible light, and infrared

• Albedo Images
  Near side and far side hemispheres. These are from the 750nm filter.
  
  
• Albedo Map of the Moon
  Four JPG images, each larger than 1MB, compiled from about 50,000 Clementine images. These are also from the 750nm filter, and the page describes them as "the best albedo map produced to date for most of the far side". Resolution is 1km per pixel.
  
  
• Albedo Maps of the Moon
  JPG images in various projections at 5km per pixel and 10km per pixel.
  
  
• Brightness Temperature Images
  Images acquired by the long-wavelength infrared camera, organized by revolution number and then by latitude.
  
  
• Clementine Lunar Image Browser
  Enter latitude and longitude, choose desired kilometers per pixel and preferred image size. Retrieve original Clementine satellite images.
  NOTE: These images are stored on magnetic tape. When you submit your request, the appropriate tape will be mounted and the data read from tape. This takes some time, so there may be a delay before your image is available. If your image does not come up at all, try again perhaps an hour later.
  
  
• CLIB Lunar Feature Extension
  Locate images by type and name instead of by latitude and longitude. For example, you could choose "Apollo Landing Site" as the category and then select "Stone Mountain" which is one of the named features in that category.
  
  
• JPL's Planetary Image Atlas
  The links next to the Clementine mission will let you search for images from every Clementine camera using a web form (Product Search) or a clickable map (Map Search), or via the Map-A-Planet interface under Tailor-made Maps. There is also a large collection of CD-ROM copies that contain the raw unprocessed images as acquired from the spacecraft, organized by orbit number, and a global basemap mosaic where you can browse down to individual 100m per pixel JPG images by latitude and longitude.
  
  
• Lunar Images
  This site includes
  • Orthographic views from various longitudes at 2km per pixel as 3MB TIFF files
  • Basemap at 500m per pixel in ISIS and TIFF formats, file sizes range from 15MB to 240MB
  • Color mosaics in TIFF and ISIS formats, file sizes from 21MB to 1.9GB (from Clementine UVVIS MULTISPECTRAL DIM CDs Volumes CL_4001 - CL_4078)
  • Hi Res mosaics from orbits 214, 218 and 220, in TIFF and ISIS formats, at resolutions up to 100m per pixel
  • Hi Res north pole mosaic in PNG format (37MB) and ISIS format (57MB to 380MB)
  
  
  
• Near-Infrared Global Multispectral Map
  Download 1.4GB mosaic files in ISIS cube format.
  
  

Mineral Resources

• Map of Possible Ice at the South Pole
  Two JPG images, each larger than 1MB, showing the location where data indicates there may be ice at the Moon's south pole.
  
  
• Resource Maps
  Iron and titanium maps.
  
  

Surface Texture

• Raw Bistatic Radar Data
  On 1994-04-10 Clementine's antenna was aimed at the Moon's south pole in "spotlight mode" and the reflected radio signal was recorded on Earth. The strength of the scattered signal from the illuminated area may be interpreted in terms of the texture of the surface at that point.
  
  On 1994-04-23 a similar experiment was conducted on the lunar north pole, and on another small portion of the Moon for comparison. See RADIO SCIENCE SUBSYSTEM INSTRUMENT INFORMATION (search for "Bistatic Surface Scattering Measurements") for more information about this experiment. This corresponds to the data on Clementine CDs CL_2001 through CL_2013.
  • (NOTE: If Internet Explorer will not open the above web page, try another browser such as Netscape, Mozilla or Opera, or right-click, Save Target As, and open it with some other program. There is nothing wrong with the file itself. It should open just fine with any program that correctly implements the well-defined web standards.)
  
  
• Reduced Bistatic Radar Data
  This has partially processed data from orbit 234, and corresponds to the data on Clementine CDs CL_2101 through CL_2108.
  
  

Topography

NOTE: These topography results are all based on a LIDAR laser altimeter which was subject to several operational constraints. The spacecraft's orbit was too high to get useful results near the poles (beyond about 78 degrees). The laser was usually directed toward the ground track under the satellite's orbit, so measurements are typically 2.8 degrees apart in the east-west direction. The laser fired usually every 20km along the north-south path, but many pulses did not produce a valid return. Some pulses even produced multiple returns. Vertical precision was about 40m. The data has been interpolated down to 1x1 degree and 0.25x0.25 degree, but at that scale you would be looking at a lot of interpolated data for each original measurement.

• Color-coded Topography
  Oblique shaded-relief elevation map.
  
  
• Lunar Topography
  Small color image, 461x381 pixels.
  
  
• Topography Data
  
  Elevation data interpolated from the LIDAR instrument at 1x1 degree and 0.25x0.25 degree resolutions. This site includes ASCII data files that you could write a program to process.
  
  
• Topographic Maps
  Near side, far side, east and west hemispheres.
  
  

General Reference

• Space Photography Laboratory
  This is a catalog of materials available online or by visiting the SPL in PSF 513-A.
  
  

Hardcopy and Media

Visit the Space Photography Laboratory in PSF 513-A to view these materials. The SPL is open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

• Clementine Atlas of the Moon
  This book includes 144 full-page pictures covering the entire lunar surface and identifying most of the named features. The atlas also includes a few color maps, such as iron and titanium concentrations, a geologic map, and neutron spectrometer measurements of epithermal neutron flux at the poles.
  
  
• Images and Data on CD-ROM
  Experimental Data Records, ultraviolet and visible camera mosaics, multispectral DIMs, and Hi-Res Strip Mosaics. These CDs are archival data sources and may not be removed from the SPL. A complete online copy of these CDs, with descriptions of what is on each, can be found at JPL's Online Data Volumes.
  
  

Written by Marvin Simkin Filename index.html Last updated April 14, 2005