Shadows at the Moon's South Pole

Explanation: Was this image of the Moon's surface taken with a microscope? No -- it's a multi-temporal illumination map made with a wide-angle camera. To create it, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft collected 1,700 images over a period of 6 lunar days (6 Earth months), repeatedly covering an area centered on the Moon's south pole from different angles. The resulting images were stacked to produce the featured map -- representing the percentage of time each spot on the surface was illuminated by the Sun . Remaining convincingly in shadow , the floor of the 19-kilometer diameter Shackleton crater is seen near the map's center. The lunar south pole itself is at about 9 o'clock on the crater's rim. Crater floors near the lunar south and north poles can remain in permanent shadow , while mountain tops can remain in nearly continuous sunlight . Useful for future outposts , the shadowed crater floors could offer reservoirs of water-ice , while the sunlit mountain tops offer good locations to collect solar power .