Home▸Space & Astronomy▸Permanently Shadowed Craters: Lunar Polar Cold Traps

🌑 Permanently Shadowed Craters: Lunar Polar Cold Traps

Sweep the low polar sun across a field of lunar craters and watch which crater floors ever catch direct light versus which stay in permanent shadow, cold-trapping water ice over simulated geological time.

Space & Astronomy3DModerate60 FPS💧 Water 🌍 Earth ❄️ Ice & Cold

⚙ Under the hood

Sweep the Moon's low polar sun across a field of craters with varying depth and rim height, and watch which crater floors ever catch direct light versus which stay in permanent shadow. Confirmed permanently-shadowed craters slowly accumulate a water-ice deposit over fast-forwarded geological time, while any crater that catches sunlight even once sublimates its ice away instantly — showing exactly why lunar ice concentrates only in permanently shadowed regions.

permanently shadowed regionslunar cold trapwater icecrater shadowlunar geology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install