Since July 21 1969 the landing sites of the Apollo missions had not been seen until the LRO, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, photographed them earlier this year. Launched earlier this year the LRO’s mission was to take the highest resolution photographs ever of the surface in preparation for future moon landings. Here is a photo released in July for the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. This photo and the original photos of the other landing sites were taken before LRO settled into its close orbit. Here is Apollo 12, ClickThePic to visit the LRO website and see the high resolution versions.
Now that LRO has settled into its permanent orbit the resolution is much better. Depending on lighting and angle it is able to capture as little as 20 inches per pixel. So what do we see with better resolution? Check out the Apollo 11 landing site.
Remember the story of how Neil Armstrong saw that the computer was going to land them in a boulder field near West Crater. If you look closely to the left of West Crater you can actually see some of the larger boulders strewn out towards Little West Crater.
Here’s a closeup of the Lunar Module Descent Stage.
That darker line over the unmarked arrow towards Little West Crater are Neil Armstrong’s footprints, the brightest spot in the center is the descent stage. The small crater to the left near the descent stage was photographed by Armstrong. Here’s the picture from the Nasa Gallery.
I don’t believe that anything captures my imagination more than these incredible images.
AZ bob