(Image
support data is here) (This page created on 4/4/96)
Picard is an Eratosthenian crater, which means that it was formed after the mare basalts were formed but that it is older than Copernican craters, which are the most recently-formed category of lunar craters. Picard's diameter is 23 km (14 miles) and the lowest point on the crater floor is approximately 2000 meters below the highest point on its rim. It is located at 14.6 degrees North, 54.7 degrees east in the northwester quadrant of Mare Crisium. Within Picard is a series of terraces that selenologists have attributed to a series of collapses of the crater floor, rather than the slumping of the crater walls themselves, which is believed to occur more commonly in craters much larger than Picard.
Note: The in-lined images on this page have been adjusted to reach an unhappy compromise for a reasonable appearrance on PCs and on MacIntoshes running Netscape (the images were a total loss on the Unix machine I viewed them on). I suggest you download the entire large gif described below and use an image-viewer application (like xv) to adjust the brightness levels to suit your particular computer system. All of the smaller in-lined images on this page can also be downloaded in stand-alone form for saving to an image file that can be viewed with an image-viewer application. The downloadable files were adjusted for viewing on MacIntoshes, so their brightness will have to be increased for PCs. It's too bad that net browsers don't offer users any control over image appearance.
NASA Photographic Support Data is here.
This is a smaller version of a4421.gif .
The full-size (363k) GIF is here.
Click here for a stand-alone
gif of the smaller in-lined image.
What is immediately noticeable about the appearance of Picard in Frame AS10-30-4421 is the apparent obscuration of the rim nearest the camera. This brings to mind Apollo astronaut Worden's comment about the apparent haziness of the region. This could be an illusion caused by the similarity of brightness and texture between the mare surface at the rim and the inner wall of the crater behind this indistinct section of the rim. It may, however, be something more than that. It might, however, be a true obscuration of the rim by debris suspended above the mare surface between the camera and the rim of Picard. The clip below from a4421.JPG shows one of the apparent arches over Picard (in blue) and a linear feature that seems to be suspended over the crater or just behind it.
Closer View of Hazy Part of Picard
Click here for a standa-alone gif of this in-lined image.
The enlargement below from a separate print of AS-30-4421 shows the same arch on the left. The right leg of this arch appears to meet the left leg of one or more fainter arches on the right of the image, forming an "M" shape.
Enlargement of Central "Arches"
Click here for a stand-alone gif of this in-lined image.
Judging only from this one photograph, it could be argued that the "arch" is in reality two chains of craters on the mare surface extending away from the crater and converging to give the appearance of an arch. If so, then this is a second coincidence of position separate from the coincidence needed to explain the apparent obscuration of the crater rim. The other apparent arches to the right of the most pronounced one require yet another coincidental alignment of mare surface features or photographic blemishes of some sort.
To explain the linear feature outlined in red above requires a fourth explanation - an unusually straight depression running through the mare or perhaps a scratch on the negative, which otherwise is relatively free of all but a few scratches, and those obviously photographic defects and not blended subtly with the surrounding terrain as is this feature.
So either there are several accidental and unrelated illusory patterns within this one region of the Apollo photograph or there are one or more structures, possibly in some functional relationship to each other, suspended over the crater Picard and reaching to an altitude of about 3 kilometers.
One goal we are aiming for is to find
anomalous features that appear in more than one photograph. Due
to the great differences in lighting and perspective from one
photograph to another, it is not always possible to do so, but
a second photograph in the AS10-44xx series provides some
additional evidence that the apparent "arches" over Picard may
be vertical structures rather than features on the lunar
surface. A comparison of this photograph , AS10-4417, with
AS10-4421 is
discussed here..
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