Does anyone know about the "formations" on the moon?

Question

I think they are referred to as the "shard" and the "tower"

Answer 1

i am familiar with the near side of the moon, by actually looking at it with telesscopes. i have never heard of either of these formations.

Answer 2

There are all kinds of formations on the moon - mountains, valleys, craters, rilles, maria, etc.

I searched for "the shard" and "the tower" in lists of features of the moon and couldn't find anything listed by those names.

Answer 3

I went to Joseph P Skipper's website for the "Moon Tower".  I also went to his source, which is the Clementine Lunar Image Browser (CLIB) which allows one to pull up images of a given region of the Moon at various resolutions and scales.  You get basically the same as Skipper's image if you request Latitude 64, Longitude 265, Resolution 1km/pixel and 768 x 768 pixels.

I haven't researched the issue in depth but I would put these triangular features down to to way the image is put together (mosiacked) by combining many individual images from the Clementine spacecraft.  When I look at the image I can see many linear seams where different images with slightly different exposure and lighting are joined.  A quick count suggested that the full scene is constructed from at least 16 separate images.

Since the image scale is 1km per pixel, these features would be very large if they were real, even allowing for a wider area of image manipulation to remove other indicators like shadows and so-on.  The actual area is around Mare Humboldtianum and the large crater Bel'kovich which are essentially over the limb of the Moon as viewed from Earth, ie on the far side.  It is thus difficult to get one's telescope out and take a look.

An image of the region can be seen on Wikipedia and is probably recoverable from the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Answer 4

It seems that the 'shard' and the 'tower' refers to something found in a single photo taken quite a long time ago.  Since it was only seen once, and it looks to me like ejecta from a meteorite, that's what I'll say it probably is.

The Moons been bombarded by meteorites since it was formed so it's not at all unlikely.