Characteristic analysis of the lunar surface and automatically extracting of the lunar morphology based on CE-1

The satellite Chang’E-1(CE-1) was launched in October 24, 2007 in China, which obtained a large number of scientific data of the global moon, including imageries and laser altimetric data. In this paper, the characteristics of the lunar surface are analyzed and the lunar morphologic information of the lunar mare and highland is automatically extracted based on the imagery acquired by CCD camera and the DEM processed by three-line digital photogrammetric technology. The results show that the average elevation of the global moon is -742 m; the highest and lowest locations stand in the farside of the moon; the highest is at the eastern margin of Engel’gardt crater; the lowest is in the secondary impact crater pit of Minkowski crater. The surface of the moon is very flat; most of its slope is bellow 15°, accounting for 90% of the total area of the global moon. The great variation of slope value mainly distributes in the lunar highlands, with an average slope of greater than 7°. The lunar mares widely distribute in the nearside of moon, with an average slope of below 3°. The optimum statistical unit for lunar relief value is 16 km2. The mare and highland are the basic types of lunar morphology, which can be automatically extracted by maximum likelihood classifier based on the elevation data and slope, relief and imagery data. The values of altitude, slope, relief and grey level of CE-1 imageries are normalized and binarized. A case study of H010 (locating in 0°-18°W, 0°-14°S) shows that the overall accuracy assessment for extracted results of the lunar mare and highland based on the geological data published by USGS in 1971 is better, and the Kappa coefficient is 0.78, and the results of the lunar mare and highland show that the method can be used to extract the characteristics of lunar surface.