4. Map fresh craters to assess the abundance of small impacts in the recent past.

Lunar soil grows darker with time. Able to sense the different tones of the soil, M³ will enable scientists to roughly date craters formed during the past 500 million years, and to calculate the approximate frequency with which the Earth-Moon system has been impacted during that period.

Earth�s oceans and turbulent landscape haven�t preserved our planet�s craters nearly as well as the comparatively unchanging Moon, so lunar craters provide the best available record of our own impact history -- information that can give us some idea of when we might expect the next major impact on Earth.