I am still just starting my lunar research and so this page does not have much on it. Presently, my lunar work is focusing on getting CosmoQuest's Moon Mappers up and running and starting the data reduction process. We launched on January 9, 2012, and this page was last updated January 10, 2012.
Please note that you can contact me for any of the papers if you do not have access to them.
Current Research: CosmoQuest Moon Mappers | Lunar Crater Database
CosmoQuest Moon Mappers
2011-present
Pamela Gay - Project PI || Irene Antonenko - Science co-Lead
CosmoQuest is a broadly designed portal for astronomy outreach, education, and research. It was launched January 1, 2012, in partnership with many people but spearheaded by Pamela Gay (SIUE), Frasier Cain (Universe Today), and Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy). Within CosmoQuest is a section for citizen science -based research. That's where I come in.
I was tapped by Pamela to be the Science co-Lead of Moon Mappers, a section of the site that presents volunteers with small regions of the moon and asks them to identify features. At launch, we are focusing on craters, which is my expertise. My co-Lead, Irene, is more interested in volcanic features that will take a bit longer to fine-tune with Moon Mappers.
Moon Mappers is still very young as a project, having been launched in beta January 9, 2012, and full on March 19, 2012, with two primary tasks -- "Simply Craters" and "Man vs. Machine." The former asks users to "simply" identify craters and if they see any particularly interesting features of interest to mark them, as well. The latter has some craters already marked via an automated detection algorithm. We're studying several things with this, and the initial images selected are meant to help us select images and fine-tune goals for the future as well as provide meaningful science that has not been done before.
To that end, there is a Lunar and Planetary Science Conference abstract (see link below) that details the goals and interface.
Abstracts:
Gay, P.L., Bracey, G., Antonenko, I., Lehan, C., Moore, J., Foster, T., Robbins, S.J., and D. Huang. (2012). CosmoQuest MoonMappers: A Facility for Learning and Doing Science
. Lunar Science Forum 5, #(TBD).
Robbins, S.J., Antonenko, I., Lehan, C., Moore, J., Huang, D., and P.L. Gay. (2012). CosmoQuest MoonMappers: Cataloging the Moon
Robbins, S.J.; Antonenko, I.; Gay, P.L.; Lehan, C.; and J. Moore. (2012). Cataloging the Moon with the CosmoQuest Moon Mappers Citizen Science Project
Related Previous Abstracts:
Robbins, S.J.; Chapman, C.R.; and P.L. Gay. (2011). Moon Zoo: Lessons Learned from the First Year of Citizen Scientists Identifying Lunar Craters
Gay, P.L.; Brown, S.; Huang, D.; Daus, C.; Lehan, C.; and S.J. Robbins. (2011). Moon Zoo: Making the Public Part of a Crater Survey Algorithm
Related Previous Papers
Joy, K., and 30 coauthors. (2011). Moon Zoo: Citizen Science in Lunar Exploration. Astronomy & Geophysics, 52:2, pp. 2.10-2.12, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-4004.2011.52210.x.
Lunar Crater Database
2012-present, on and off pending funding
I submitted my first-ever grant proposal as PI in early 2012 to build a global lunar crater database of comparable size to my Mars crater database. As some preliminary work for it, I started to catalog craters larger than around 10-15 km across the surface in February. I finished this range of basic crater identification just in time for the March 2012 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. I may go smaller, I may not, depending upon spare time and funding.
If this project is funded, the proposal was to build a roughly 500,000-crater database of all 1-5 km-diameter craters on the lunar surface. There are several science questions that can only be answered with craters of this small size range, including my questions into secondary craters (see my Mars research), as well as some dynamical and lunar chronology questions.