Origin of Large-Scale Formations on the Lunar Surface

Abstract

In the preceding chapter our aim has been to reconstruct an average micro-structure of the lunar surface from information obtained through diverse channels of mainly photometric evidence. In what follows, we wish to conclude this discussion — and this entire volume — by a few retrospective considerations concerning the probable structure of the lunar surface on a larger scale. In earlier parts of this volume we have stressed repeatedly that the sculpture of the lunar surface, on any scale, can be regarded as the boundary condition of all internal processes that have been going on beneath the surface of our satellite since the time of its formation as an astronomical body, plus an impact counter of all external events recording in stone all collisions which it had suffered with the full range of the mass contents (from asteroids or comets to the protons and electrons of the solar wind) of interplanetary space. We wish now to return here once more to this leitmotiv, to examine from broader perspective some of its implications concerning the internal or external origin of some of the salient features of the lunar surface — such as the ‘craters’ in the widest sense of the word, or the difference between the ‘continental’ and ‘mare’ ground.