AS 15-0757 - Tsiolkovsky

Tsiolkovsky is one of the most prominent features on the Far-Side of the Moon. It is a 1 90-Km- wide impact crater with a large, complex central peak that is offset from the apparent center of the crater. Differences in tone and texture between the central peak, the lava-flooded floor, the terraced walls and the ejecta blanket are dramatically displayed in this oblique view. The ejecta blanket is dominated by a coarse pattern of ridges radiating outward from the crater; superposed on this pattern are many small level pools of smooth material that are much lighter than the otherwise similar smooth dark mare in the floor of Tsiolkovsky. The pools probably originated differently. They may consist of rock that was melted by the heat and pressure generated during the impact event and that flowed into depressions before it hardened.

Cratering experiments on Earth have shown that central peaks consist of bedrock that has been displaced upward by a distance equal to about 1/10th the diameter of the resulting crater. If samples could be obtained from the central peak at Tsiolkovsky, they might be rocks that were 20 km below the Moon's surface before Tsiolkovsky was created.