Image centers on the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, the largest impact basin on the Moon, and one of the largest impact basins in the solar system. The distance from its depths to the tops of the highest surrounding peaks is over 8 miles, almost twice the height of Mount Everest. SPA is interesting for a number of reasons. To begin with, large impact events can remove surficial materials from local areas and bring material from beneath the impact craters to, or closer to, the surface. As SPA is the deepest impact basin on the Moon the deepest lunar crustal materials should be exposed here. Several craters in this area have permanently shadowed regions that may contain deposits of hydrogen or water ice, as indicated by observations from the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND), another instrument onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The LRO is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric 19 by 112 mile polar mapping orbit. The LRO mission is a precursor to future human and robotic missions to the Moon by NASA.

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