Scientists at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) have created the Lunar South Pole Atlas, a detail chart of the Moon’s underbelly, in preparation for the upcoming Artemis mission. The south pole is the subject of intense interest because there is reason to believe that it contains the Moon’s largest reserves of H2O, which, because they are captured in craters that are never exposed to the sun, never melt.
Photography indicates the presence of two towering massifs (or mountains) — Malapert Massif and Leinbiz Beta — comparable to Earth’s Mount Everest. Writes Popular Mechanics:
The difference in elevation between the tip of Malapert Massif and the base of Hawthorne crater is about 5 miles. For context, that’s almost as tall as Mount Everest, which stretches nearly 5.5 miles into the sky. In the case of Leibniz Beta, which lies next to Shoemaker crater, the elevation difference is a whopping 6.2 miles—far higher than Earth’s tallest mountain.
The craters are home to some of the coldest temperatures ever recorded in the solar system.