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The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has returned petabytes of lunar high spatial resolution surface imagery over the past decade, impractical for humans to fully review manually. Here we develop an automated method using a deep…
(Abridged) Lunar occultations (LO) are a very efficient and powerful technique, that achieves the best combination of high angular resolution and sensitivity possible today at near-infrared wavelengths. Given that the events are fixed in…
This study introduces a data-driven approach using machine learning (ML) techniques to explore and predict albedo anomalies on the Moon's surface. The research leverages diverse planetary datasets, including high-spatial-resolution albedo…
The Apache Point Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO), in NM, can detect photon bounces from retro-reflectors on the moon surface to 0.1ns timing resolution. This facility enables not only the detection of light speed anisotropy, which…
Lunar-based gravitational-wave interferometry is a fascinating endeavor, and was proposed as a promising approach to bridge the observational gap between space-borne and ground-based detectors. In this work, we adopt the Fisher-matrix…
The lunar surface is a compelling location for large, distributed optical facilities, with significant advantages over orbital facilities for high spatial resolution astrophysics. The serious development of mission concepts is timely…
NASA's return to the Moon presents unparalleled opportunities to advance high-impact scientific capabilities. At the cutting edge of these possibilities are extremely high-resolution interferometric observations at visible and ultraviolet…
A next-generation lunar laser ranging apparatus using the 3.5 m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in southern New Mexico has begun science operation. APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation) has achieved…
Moon Zoo is a citizen science project that utilises internet crowd-sourcing techniques. Moon Zoo users are asked to review high spatial resolution images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), onboard NASAs LRO spacecraft, and…
Space missions generate massive volumes of high-resolution orbital and surface imagery that far exceed the capacity for manual inspection. Detecting rare phenomena is scientifically critical, yet traditional supervised learning struggles…
Lunar occultations (LO) provide a unique combination of high angular resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelenghts. At the ESO Very Large Telescope, it is possible to achieve about 1 milliarcsecond (mas) resolution and detect…
This short article presents an alternative view of high resolution imaging from various sources with the aim of the discovery of potential sites of archaeological importance, or sites that exhibit `anomalies' such that they may merit closer…
NASA's forthcoming Lunar Gateway space station, which will be uncrewed most of the time, will need to operate with an unprecedented level of autonomy. One key challenge is enabling the Canadarm3, the Gateway's external robotic system, to…
We present lunar occultation observations obtained in August 2006 with the recently demonstrated burst mode of the ISAAC instrument at the ESO VLT. The results presented here follow the previously reported observations carried out in March…
In July 5th 2014 an occultation of Mars by the Moon was visible in South America. Citizen scientists and professional astronomers in Colombia, Venezuela and Chile performed a set of simple observations of the phenomenon aimed to measure the…
Crater ellipticity determination is a complex and time consuming task that so far has evaded successful automation. We train a state of the art computer vision algorithm to identify craters in Lunar digital elevation maps and retrieve their…
Global localization is necessary for autonomous operations on the lunar surface where traditional Earth-based navigation infrastructure, such as GPS, is unavailable. As NASA advances toward sustained lunar presence under the Artemis…
The Earth-Moon-Sun system has traditionally provided the best laboratory for testing the strong equivalence principle. For a decade, the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) has been producing the world's best…
For the first time, the lunar occultation technique has been employed on a very large telescope in the near-IR with the aim of achieving systematically milliarcsecond resolution on stellar sources. We have demonstrated the burst mode of the…
The passive retroreflector arrays placed on the moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15 astronauts continue to produce valuable Earth-Moon range measurements that enable high-precision tests of gravitational physics, as well as studies of geo- and…