this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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Not arguing that PNG is the right choice, but you want something lossless for science purposes, and this is a science image.
You can tell roughly what order the impact craters were formed by seeing what overlaps what; looks like the small impacts mostly followed the big impacts. Maybe the earth's orbit cleared out the bigger stuff first? If you had a really good image, you might be able to work out the average impact angle, and therefore the average speed of impact, since we know the speed of the moon, and how they would intersect. Nothing's filled with lava like it has on the near side of the moon, which makes me think these have mostly happened later in the moon's life, when it's cooled down a bit.
I just love space, I've no education in it. I bet someone with a fancy moon science degree would be able to tell you a lot more, and they'd be poring over every pixel. Don't want any JPEGs getting in the way of that.