Impact melt on the floor of Rümker E

Contact between wall, with debris flows, and the impact melt lens inundating the floor of Rümker E, immediately southeast of the landmark Mons Rümker ridge extrusion mound in north Oceanus Procellarum. Area detail covered in the LROC Featured Image released March 8, 2013. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M122591558L, spacecraft orbit 3200, March 7, 2010; angle of incidence 42.68° at 0.5 meters resolution from 40.63 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

LROC Featured Image, March 8, 2013: Close up on the full width of the impact melt deposit on the floor of Rümker E, in an approximately 2 km wide field of view from LROC NAC M1101573334L, LRO orbit 14668, September 6, 2012; angle of incidence 41.16° at 1.13 meters resolution, from 152.92 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Sarah Braden
LROC News System

Imagine a quiet afternoon on the lunar surface about 1 billion years ago. Suddenly, the ground shakes due to the shock wave from a nearby impact.

You see rock and dust burst away from the ground on ballistic trajectories, and some large chunks of material contain so much energy from the impact, they are glowing with heat.

Some of the molten rock splashes outside the rim, but most remains ...