![]() ![]() The handful of craters along the interior span no more than a few hundred meters. The interior of the crater consists of a symmetrical 30° slope that leads down to a 6.6 km (4.1 miles) diameter floor. The shadowed portion of the crater was imaged with the Terrain Camera of the Japanese SELENE spacecraft using the illumination of sunlight reflected off the rim. Continuously illuminated mountains have been termed peaks of eternal light and have been predicted to exist since the 1900s. Peaks along the rim of the crater are almost continually illuminated by sunlight, spending about 80–90% of each lunar orbit exposed to the Sun. Estimates of the area in permanent shadow were obtained from Earth-based radar studies. ![]() īecause the orbit of the Moon is tilted only 5° from the ecliptic, the interior of this crater lies in perpetual darkness. The age of the crater is about 3.6 billion years and it has been in the proximity of the south lunar pole for at least the last two billion years. ![]() No significant craters intersect the rim, and it is sloped about 1.5° toward the direction 50–90° from the Earth. The rim is slightly raised about the surrounding surface and it has an outer rampart that has been only lightly impacted. It is located within the South Pole–Aitken basin on a massif. From the Earth, it is viewed edge-on in a region of rough, cratered terrain. The crater is 21 km (13 miles) in diameter and 4.2 km (2.6 miles) deep. The rotational axis of the Moon passes through Shackleton, near the rim. The crater is named after Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. Measurements by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft showed higher than normal amounts of hydrogen within the crater, which may indicate the presence of water ice. The low-temperature interior of this crater functions as a cold trap that may capture and freeze volatiles shed during comet impacts on the Moon. ![]() The peaks along the crater's rim are exposed to almost continual sunlight, while the interior is perpetually in shadow. Shackleton is an impact crater that lies at the lunar south pole. South lunar pole as imaged by the Diviner instrument on the NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. ![]()
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