This study examines the surface morphology within the lunar polar crater Cabeus, where the spent Atlas V Centaur rocket stage was intentionally impacted and the resulting plume was spectroscopically analyzed for water vapor and other volatiles (the LCROSS experiment). Cabeus is a pre-Nectarian impact crater approximately 100 km in diameter, located in the lunar highlands. We conducted a photogeological analysis of a ShadowCam image mosaic covering the permanently shadowed portion of the crater’s floor and inner slope, as well as a portion of the floor outside the shadowed zone. It is shown that the morphology of the Cabeus crater floor, both within and outside the shadowed region, is dominated by the presence of craters, presumably of impact origin, with diameters ranging from tens to several hundred meters. A portion of these craters exhibit a lobate rims, which is considered indicative of significant water ice content in the target material. The frequency of craters with lobate rims does not differ significantly between the shadowed and nonshadowed portions of the Cabeus floor. On the inner slope of Cabeus, the density of superposed small craters is much lower, and the surface exhibits a “elephant skin” texture. The presence of small craters with lobate rims, combined with the results of the LCROSS experiment, suggests that the floors of polar craters may become viable sites for the extraction of volatiles, primarily H2O. This water could be used to support lunar bases or, when split by solar energy into hydrogen and oxygen, serve as rocket fuel.
Basilevsky et al. (2026) studied this question.