Seattle Jew: LROC's first look at the Apollo landing sites

Saturday, July 18, 2009

LROC's first look at the Apollo landing sites | Eureka! Science News

The Apollo 14 lunar module (LM Antares) and the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package are visible in this image (note the astronaut tracks between the two artifacts). At the current altitude and lighting the descent stage is clearly visible with its angular shadow (right) and shadow cast by leg (near arrow tip). The LROC NAC image data has not been calibrated, the faint vertical stripes are a natural part of the image and will be removed later after the full suite of calibration data is collected during the commissioning phase.

NASA/GSFC/Arizona State university

The imaging system on board NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently had its first of many opportunities to photograph the Apollo landing sites. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) imaged five of the six Apollo sites with the narrow angle cameras (NACs) between July 11 and 15, within days of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The early images obtained by LROC, operated by Arizona State University Professor Mark Robinson, show the lunar module descent stages left behind by the departing astronauts. Their locations are made evident by their long shadows, which result from a low sun angle at the time of collection.