![]() ![]() LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER PHOTOS FULLThis allows full coverage of the surface by LROC’s Wide Angle Camera. The spacecraft has remained in this orbit for 28 days, long enough for the moon to completely rotate. The maneuver lowered LRO from its usual altitude of approximately 31 miles (50 kilometers) to an altitude that dipped as low as nearly 13 miles (21 kilometers) as it passed over the moon’s surface. “This put LRO in a perfect position to take these new pictures of the surface.” “Without changing the average altitude, we made the orbit more elliptical, so the lowest part of the orbit is on the sunlit side of the moon,” said Goddard’s John Keller, deputy LRO project scientist. ![]() The higher resolution of these images is possible because of adjustments made to LRO’s orbit, which is slightly oval-shaped or elliptical. LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER PHOTOS DOWNLOAD(Credit: Chris Smith, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center) Download this and related videos in broadcast quality from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio Noah Petro discusses the significance of the new Apollo images from LRO. Although the cables are much too small for direct viewing, they show up because they reflect light very well. ![]() It marks the locations of cables running from ALSEP’s central station to two of its instruments. One of the details that shows up is a bright L-shape in the Apollo 12 image. Apollo 11 carried a simpler version of the science package. It provided the first insights into the moon’s internal structure, measurements of the lunar surface pressure and the composition of its atmosphere. This equipment was a key part of every Apollo mission. Top | larger version | larger version (unlabeled) bottom imageĪt each site, trails also run to the west of the landers, where the astronauts placed the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) to monitor the moon’s environment and interior. In previous images the rover tracks were visible, but now they are sharp parallel lines on the surface.” “A great example is the sharpness of the rover tracks at the Apollo 17 site. “The new low-altitude Narrow Angle Camera images sharpen our view of the moon’s surface,” said Arizona State University researcher Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). In the Apollo 17 image, the foot trails, including the last path made on the moon by humans, are easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar rover, which remains parked east of the lander. “We can retrace the astronauts’ steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples,” said Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the LRO project science team.Īll three images show distinct trails left in the moon’s thin soil when the astronauts exited the lunar modules and explored on foot. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon’s environment and interior. ![]() (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/ASU)Īt the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. Image brightness and contrast have been altered to highlight surface details. The images do not line up perfectly because of differences in lighting conditions, angle of the LRO Camera, and other variables. LRO was moved into a lower orbit to capture the new image. The top image was released today the bottom image is a zoom-in on an LRO image released in 2009. Top image | larger version | larger version (unlabeled) Bottom image ![]()
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