Before the summer of 1969, humanity looked at the moon only from afar. NASA's elaborate training program for putting astronauts on the moon included the Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach system, or Project LOLA, at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. Painted replicas of the lunar surface were designed to simulate the views pilots would have when approaching the moon. "Unfortunately, such a simulation -- although great fun and quite aesthetic -- was not helpful," concludes James R. Hansen, Auburn University professor and author of Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo. Next, see one of an astronaut's first views of the moon up close.
Image Credit: NASA/Langley Research Center
This May 1969 view of the lunar surface comes courtesy of Apollo 10. It was the first manned mission to orbit the moon, and was NASA's final test run for the moon landing later that year. The snake-like trough in the upper part of the frame is Rima Ariadaeus, a type of lunar groove called a rille. It may represent a fault line in the moon's structure. To see one of the most important achievements in human history, check out the next picture.
Image Credit: NASA
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth," President John F. Kennedy said in a special address to Congress in May 1961, just four months into his term. Though he did not live to see it, NASA fulfilled his wish in 1969, while hundreds of millions watched on TV. Yet the best views were had by the astronauts themselves. This iconic photo of lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin was taken by mission commander Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to set foot on the moon. In the next photo, see the photographer.
Image Credit: NASA
Immediately after his famous "one small step" line, Neil Armstrong talked about what he was standing on. "Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots." To see the powder up close, check out the following photo.
Image Credit: NASA
This is an astronaut's footprint in the lunar powder called regolith. There are no rivers and oceans to churn it, but micrometeorites and solar wind irradiation constantly break up the particles. Next up, see how astronauts collected some to bring it back to Earth for study.
Image Credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center
After coming home from the moon in the summer of 1969, NASA went right back. This is Apollo 12 astronaut Alan L. Bean with a container of lunar regolith Nov. 20, 1969. The Apollo missions brought 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks, dust and core samples between 1969 and 1972. In six spaceflights, astronauts collected 2200 samples from six exploration sites. The bulk of this material is housed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, but moon rocks have been distributed nationally and internationally as gifts and for display. They even make the rounds of classrooms, as you'll see in the next picture.
Image Credit: NASA
NASA's Astromaterials Acquisition & Curation Office at the Johnson Space Center keeps track of samples from the moon, Mars and interplanetary space. It provides scientists with material for research, and also helps teachers bring NASA into the classroom through the release of educational sample disks like the one shown here. It's one thing for a young person to look at a book or through a telescope -- it's even more powerful to see a piece of the moon up close. In the next photo, journey back to the moon with Apollo 17.
Image Credit: NASA
The longest Apollo mission was also the last. For 12 days in mid-December 1972, Apollo 17 was away from Earth. Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt (the first scientist-astronaut to make the journey) spent 75 hours on the lunar surface and collected 257 pounds (117 kg) of samples. They also captured this view of the lunar surface. To get a look at the full moon, check out the next photo.
Image Credit: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
The moon's craggy surface is the result of asteroids and comets slamming into it. This is a mosaic image of the moon taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009. The huge dark region (bordered by the two arrows that have been added to the picture) is known as the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin. It is the moon's largest impact basin, stretching across nearly a fourth of its surface, and its oldest, having been created about 3.9 billikon years ago. It is also about 5 miles (8 km) deep. To see an enhanced view of the moon's surface, check out the following picture.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The moon isn't all gray -- there are subtle color variations resulting from different levels of titanium and iron in the regolith. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been photographing the moon with both visible and ultraviolet light and emphasizing the colors to try to determine the mineral makeup of each region. Next, see the moon in a riot of hues.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The man in the moon gets a makeover! The Galileo unmanned spacecraft recorded this mosaic of 53 images in 1992, while on its way to Jupiter. The pictures were taken through three filters and combined in heightened false color to show how different mineral mixtures reflect light differently. In the next photo, see a new view of the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL
This is something you will never see from Earth -- the far side of the moon, in a mosaic of 15,000 pictures taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter between late 2009 and early 2011. The far side, which always faces away from the Earth, is not the same as the dark side, the portion not receiving sunlight at the moment.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
Ever since we first started blasting off for the moon, mankind has left its share of discarded stuff up there. Here, for example, an arrow points to a tiny dot on the lunar surface. If you zoomed in on that dot, the dot would soon stop being a dot and become the Soviet-era robotic lander Luna 17. The spacecraft it resting right where it was left in 1970, after if brought the Lunokhod rover to the moon for the U.S.S.R. In our next picture, we'll indeed show you a close-up picture of the Lunokhod rover.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Here we see a close-up view of what a Lunokhod rover looked like. They were about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) long and about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall. Sure, it might look a bit simple by today's standards, but 1970 was a long time ago. Next we'll take a pit stop on the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
We know that the moon has spent much of its life as a galactic punching bag, and impact craters are visible everywhere on the moon -- but pits are another story. This pit located in an area NASA calls "Mare Ingenii" -- the "sea of cleverness" -- is about 427 feet (130 meters) in diameter! Pit indeed. It's theorized the pit formed from a collapsed tube of lava flow. If you look to the left-hand, illuminated, side of the pit, you can see boulders and debris that probably originated on the lunar surface but fell into the pit during the collapse event. Next, we'll look in on an astronaut at work.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
Apollo 15 Mission Commander Alan Shepard assembles a double core tube to study the lunar soil. If you look just to the left of Shepard, about parallel with his shoulders, you can see a 16mm camera mounted in front of him. Next, we'll see the crater on the moon that man created -- on purpose!
Image Credit: NASA
The crater in the middle of this picture was formed by Apollo 14's Saturn IVB booster. The booster was intentionally crashed onto the lunar surface on February 4, 1971. The impact, and the "moonquake" it caused, helped scientists study the moon's interior structure, thanks to seismometers -- placed on the surface by Apollo astronauts -- that were able to send data back to NASA about the tremor.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
There's more geology work to be done in this picture, which shows Charles M. Duke Jr., Apollo 16 lunar module pilot, collecting soil samples. To Duke's left, you can see the rim of Plum crater, which is 131 feet (40 meters) in diameter and 33 feet (10 meters) deep. Further in the background, the lunar rover awaits. Apollo 16 was the fifth mission in which humans walked on the surface of the moon and launched on April 16, 1972.
Image Credit: NASA
In this image, we see a part of Copernicus crater. It's considered a relatively young crater, given its surface texture is still sharp and crisp (even boulder tracks are faintly visible!). We'll look across another crater in the next picture.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
This is an oblique view across the 35-mile (57-kilometer) wide Murchison crater (shown at center). The crater predates a massive impact that took place in the area and it was eroded by debris from that event.
Image Credit: NASA/LPI
Here we see the floor of a 0.7-mile (l.2-kilometer) wide crater in what's known as the Mare Frigoris Constellation region of interest. NASA believes soil samples taken from this region could help us better understand the complicated geologic history of this particular area. Next we'll look at a rare characteristic in one neighborhood of the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
This is Aitken crater, one of the most geologically diverse settings on the far side of the moon. Its floor is covered in a small puddle of mare basalt (the dark rock of a lava flow). Mare deposits are a rare phenomenon on the far side of the moon, and they're something lunar scientists are still puzzling over. The Aitken crater is on the northern rim of the South Pole-Aitken basin -- the oldest and biggest impact basin on the moon. In fact, it's one of the oldest and largest impact basins in our entire solar system.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Next stop on our moon surfaces tour is the Cantor crater and its surrounding terrain. The crater is 50 miles (about 81 kilometers) in diameter, and it's a bit elongated in its north-south direction. Next we'll see a curious feature not often seen on the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The shadow of a spacecraft looms over the lunar surface in this picture of the first of the Surveyor missions, as it makes a successful, soft landing on the moon. Surveyor 1 helped scientists establish as valid the design and landing techniques they were incorporating at the time. The craft was able to tell them about the kind of bearing pressure the lunar soil could absorb and also sent back information about the moon's radar reflectivity and temperature. And, just as importantly, it transmitted more than 11,000 pictures. Surveyor 1 launched on May 30, 1966 and landed on the moon on June 2, 1966. Next, we'll catch a lunar surface wave.
Image Credit: NASA
These "waves" in the moon's Jackson crater are impact melt flows that have cooled and frozen in time upon the lunar surface. Jackson crater is a 44-mile (71-kilometer) diameter impact crater on the far side of the moon. Just a few milliseconds after the initial impact, material slouched toward the center of the new crater, creating a number of terraces -- the "waves" we see here.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
This image was among the first sent back by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched in June of 2009. The orbiter was able to mark the landing areas of various Apollo missions, and in this picture, we see remnants of Apollo 14, such as the lunar module, its shadow and even astronaut footpaths! See a rendering of the LRO in orbit in our next picture.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a robotic spacecraft that orbits the moon, taking pictures of its surface in order to help NASA learn more about our friend in the night sky. Here is an artist's depiction of the craft in orbit.
Image Credit: NASA
This picture takes a turn for the mythological, with the crater called Daedalus. It was snapped in its place on the far side of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the first moon-landing journey.
Image Credit: NASA
Here we see an image of the Apollo 16 landing site, showing the lunar module descent stage, various pieces of equipment, and the disturbed lunar soil (which can be seen here in the darker lines and areas) where astronauts John Young and Charles Duke traveled in the spring of 1972. The labels you see on the image mark the Lunar Module (LM); Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV); Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP); the Radioisotopic Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) that powered the ALSEP; and a line of geophones (equipment that takes seismic readings).
Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
We end our gallery with a data modeling of the Malapert region of the moon, located near the lunar south pole. The model reveals the elevation of different points on the lunar surface, such as the topographically high Malapert Massif, indicated just off center on the left. Data from NASA modeling has shown that the rim of the Malapert Massif is well illuminated and boasts strong communications potential. As such, the region has been suggested as a base for some future exploration of the moon.
Now that you've seen our Surface of the Moon Pictures, check out our Kepler Telescope Pictures!
Image Credit: NASA
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