Expert Exchange: ISSI-BJ and APSCO-led Space Science School – Geological Mapping of a region within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin with Chang’E data

Europlanet 2024 RI’s Expert Exchange Programme aims to support the planetary community to share expertise and best practice, and to prepare new facilities and services. The programme provides funding for short visits (up to one week).

Aurélie Van den Neucker (DLR Berlin-Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), Germany, visited the ISSI-BJ Space Science School at the Geo-informa4cs and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), in Si Racha, Chon Buri Province, Thailand from 17-24 October 2023.

The purpose of my expert exchange call to participate to the ISSI-BJ Space Science School, was to gain more knowledge and training in lunar sciences, connect with international researchers and enable possible collaborations between Asian countries and Europe within the lunar scientific community. The gained knowledge will help me for my future career in lunar and planetary sciences as I will continue to work with lunar samples and remote sensing data for my PhD project at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin.

The joint space science school is organized between the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) and the International Space Science Institute in Beijing (ISSI-BJ) with as goal to share knowledge between the researchers. The focus of this year’s school was the Moon, which aligned with the renewed interest within the scientific community to explore this celestial body for the upcoming Chang’E, Artemis and other lunar missions.

The workshop was held at the Geo-informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), in Si Racha, Chon Buri Province, Thailand from October 17 – 24, 2023. The programme started with two days of classes held by invited researchers and professors from different universities and research facilities from China. These professors are experts in the lunar science field, and their lectures covered a wide range of topics; From lunar surface analysis with remote sensing data to computer modelling of the lunar crust. After each talk there was enough time to ask ques4ons, which allowed the exchange of ideas between speakers and participants. The speakers were also open for discussion during the coffee, lunch breaks or after working hours.

For the following days, participants were subdivided in groups with as common goal to analyse the evolution and geological events of an area of the Moon. The project outline I completed during the school was to map a region within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the far side of the Moon, by using Chang’E remote sensing data. This work was made in collabora4on with Yizen Ma, Fanglu Luo and our project supervisor Le Wang of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan).

We used the open-source geographical information system QGIS 3.28 LTR and its different plugins (Mappy, OpenCraterTool and qProf) to import and process the remote sensing data to generate atvthe end of the workshop a geomorphological map of the designated lunar region. For the analysis, we imported a 500 mpp Digital Elevation Model (DEM) derived from the Chang’E 1 mission data, a 120 mpp Digital Orthophoto Map (DOM) derived from the Chang’E 1 mission data, and a 100 mpp Global mosaic derived from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) wide angle camera (WAC).

These layers allowed a beder understanding of the research area to delimit the region in different geological units. After generating the final map, it was possible to define the formation chronology and relative dates from one unit to the other, respec4vely to the different laws of stratigraphy. The absolute age of the units could also be determined, using the craterstat2 tool. The final generated map can be seen in Fig.1. This mapping project helped us comprehend the geological seeng of our research area, which is of significant importance to understand the formation geology of the SPA.

The workshop concluded with an end ceremony, where all the different working groups would sit together and share the work they have been doing over the past week. Questions were asked at the end of each section, which provided interesting discussions and excellent feedback.

I can conclude that the school was an amazing way to collaborate with this community of researchers. This workshop provided me a beder understanding of the SPA basin region on the far side of the Moon and how to use the Chinese Chang’E data. After the school, the different working groups will still work together to combine our research in a final report to be published in the TAIKONG ISSI-BJ magazine for public outreach.

These types of initiatives will hopefully remain, as sharing knowledge in these types of settings is in my opinion very important to reinforce the collaborations between Europe and Asia. I would like to thank the organisers Maurizio Falanga, Mohammad Seyedabadi Ebrahimi, Lijuan En, Francesca Garfagnoli and lecturers Min Ding, Jun Huang, Yang Liu, Long Xiao, Zhiyong Xiao, Yi Xu, Qingyun Deng, Le Wang, as well as all other participants for making this lunar workshop successful. A special thank you to Europlanet Expert Exchange and ISSI-BJ for this opportunity and I am looking forward to sharing our work in further details in the near future.

Expert Exchange Objectives covered by this visit: Training, Early Career Support.

Find out more about the Europlanet Expert Exchange Programme.