Calculate the actual diameters of the smallest craters

Reference no: EM133215024

Question:

The file ''smyth_kirch_piton.jpg" contains a close-up image of part of Mare Imbrium. Near the rightmost edge of the image is crater Piazzi Smyth with a diameter of 13 km. Below and slightly to the left of crater Piazzi Smyth is the 11 km diameter crater Kirch. Open the "smyth_kirch_piton.jpg" file using the MS Paint software or the Mac photo viewer. Either software can be used to take the measurements necessary for this exercise. When the cursor is passed over the image, the (x, y) coordinates of the cursor's position is listed in the bottom left hand corner of the window. Make sure that the unit in the drop-down window just to the right of the coordinates is pixel or ''px". Do not change the ''zoom" (drop down window next to unit window) when making repeated measurements on an image as this will change the image scale.

In order to measure sizes that accurately represent the physical size of a feature, the scale of a lunar image must be established. If a photo of the entire lunar disc is involved, this is particularly easy. The diameter of the Moon is known to be 3476 km. If the image of the Moon were 10.00 cm in diameter then the scale of the photo would be 3476 km / 10.00 cm or 347.6 km per cm. A feature measuring 5.0 mm or 0.50 cm would be 347.6 km / cm * 0.50 cm = 170 km in extent. For photos of a limited area of the Moon, the size of one feature in the photo must be known to establish scale. Consider a crater known to be 60 km in diameter measuring 20 mm on the photo. This establishes the scale of the picture as 3 km per mm. Now simply measure any other feature in the photo and multiply it by the scale to determine the true size of that particular feature.

Measure the crater diameters in pixels for both craters Piazzi Smyth and Kirch. Then use the actual diameters to determine and record the scale of the image. If the computed scale is different for the two craters, then record the average image scale. Next calculate the actual diameters of the smallest craters in the image using the image scale. If the campus is approximately 1 km in diameter, compare the smallest crater visible to the size of the campus.

Reference no: EM133215024

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