NASA showed a photo of a lunar crater that has not seen light for billions of years

NASA astronomers published An amazing image of the moon's Shackleton Crater, created by combining photographs from two orbital cameras. This crater is located in the mountainous part of the Moon's south pole, where, due to the satellite's tilt, only the highest ridges and peaks are illuminated by the sun.

The interior of Shackleton is constantly in shadow. Scientists believe that this is where “cold traps” are created, where water or ice could potentially hide from the Sun... and from the eyes of curious astronomers.

In the central part of the crater, extremely low temperatures are observed, not exceeding -173 °C. If this area contained water vapor from the fall of ancient comets, it is now frozen and out of sight.

This image was obtained using frames obtained by the LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera), operating since 2009, and

ShadowCam, a NASA instrument aboard a space probe called Danuri.

NASA notes that a detailed map of the Moon's South Pole, which can be generated using ShadowCam, will be useful for future projects to study the surface of the satellite.

Chinese astronomers have also long been planning to study Shackleton. To do this, in 2026 they are going to send a miniature flying probe into the crater, which will try to find evidence of the presence of lunar water ice.