New Pictures of Apollo Landing Sites

Posted by Miss Cellania in Pictures, Science & Tech on July 17, 2009 at 4:27 pm



Forty years later, you can still see the lunar modules, and even footprints, left on the moon by the Apollo missions. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO took new pictures between July 11th and 15th.

“Not only do these images reveal the great accomplishments of Apollo, they also show us that lunar exploration continues,” said LRO project scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “They demonstrate how LRO will be used to identify the best destinations for the next journeys to the moon.”

NASA officials say the next round of photographs, to be taken during the final mapping orbit, will have even greater resolution. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog, where these pictures caused great excitement.

(image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University)


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18 comments to "New Pictures of Apollo Landing Sites"

  1. Kalel
    July 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    Time for the UN to declare lunar landing sites as historical preserves, and protect them from future trespassers.

  2. Johnny Cat
    July 17th, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    An amazing reminder of the constant sameness of the moon; the walk path is so eternal and cool. And I hate to be the Apollo Purist again, but that's not actually the Lunar Module, it's the descent stage that served as a launch pad for the LM.

  3. fz
    July 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    Take that, conspiracy theorists!

  4. Wes
    July 18th, 2009 at 2:19 am

    Photoshop.

  5. Miss Cellania
    July 18th, 2009 at 6:09 am

    Thanks, Wes. I can't believe I had to wait ten hours for that. I guessed that would have been said within an hour of posting this.

  6. Joe
    July 18th, 2009 at 8:58 am

    As soon as everyone admits that this NEVER happened we'll all be better for it.

  7. heyZeus
    July 18th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    why are they so blurry and why hasn't the hubble or any other telescope taking pictures of the apollo landing sites before?

  8. heyZeus
    July 18th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    *taken

  9. Some Canadian Skeptic
    July 18th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    @heyZeus:

    Hubble, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, Griffith, the VLT and all the other land/space-based telescopes simply don't have the resolution to shoot so tiny a target on the moon. Telescopes just don't work like that. Yes, Hubble et. all are super-powerful (so they can shoot images millions of light years away), but the distance to the resolution is the equally-important function of a Telescope. It'd be like using a backyard telescope to look at bacteria across the street. The fact that it took the LRO's super-high definition cameras in lunar orbit to take these pictures is pretty revealing.

  10. Hires
    July 19th, 2009 at 8:23 am

    Just point the Hubble at the moon, take some hires pics. Bullshit over.

  11. Mike.
    July 19th, 2009 at 10:55 am

    That's the worst picture of a sound stage I've ever seen! :)

  12. ted
    July 19th, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    I think they're using the Hubble to do more important things than trying to prove something to people who wouldn't believe it anyways.

  13. smak
    July 19th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    @ Hires

    Pointing Hubble at the Moon is like using binoculars to look at blood cells.

  14. SydeffeX
    July 20th, 2009 at 10:39 am

    I believe that this picture is genuine. But somebody needs to explain to me whyit looks like all the rocks are lit from the right, while the LM is lit from the left.

  15. Miss Cellania
    July 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    Because those are craters.

  16. lars1632
    July 20th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    This is why

    http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php?id=77&cat=topten

  17. Dexter
    July 20th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    Photoshop :)

  18. Bill English
    August 1st, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Wes - Do it in photo shop!


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