lunar reconnaissance orbiter photos of apollo landing sites

SEP, a separate investigation from ALSEP, characterized the electrical properties of the lunar soil.īelow the SEP experiment is where the astronauts parked the rover, in a prime spot to shoot video of the liftoff of the Challenger module.įigure 3: This video, released Sept. Cernan made these when he laid out the 35-meter antennas for the Surface Electrical Properties, or SEP, experiment.

To the east, more rover tracks can be seen. To the west of the landing site, the cross-shaped path that the astronauts made as they set up the geophones to monitor seismic activity can be seen. As in previous Apollo missions, the astronauts set up the lunar monitoring equipment known as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), the details of which varied from mission to mission. The LRV gave the Apollo 17 astronauts, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, considerable mobility. Also seen in this image are the descent stage of the Challenger lunar module and the LRV, parked to the east. In the thin lunar soil, the trails made by astronauts on foot can be easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar roving vehicle, or LRV. The top two images (a,b) have larger pixel scales (49 cm, 54 cm) and incidence angles (55° and 21° from vertical) that bracket the new higher resolution image (c 45°).įigure 2: The twists and turns of the last tracks left by humans on the moon crisscross the surface in this LRO image of the Apollo 17 site. When an image is underexposed or overexposed contrast and detail suffer. Linear features are enhanced when they lie perpendicular to the direction to the Sun, and tend to disappear when parallel. When the Sun is high above the horizon differences in surface brightness are enhanced, and when the Sun is low surface roughness is more obvious. Sun angle and direction are also important factors, as is the exposure level. What is visible in an image is not simply a matter of the size of a pixel projected onto the surface. Presenter: Mark Robinson, principal investigator, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, Arizona State Universityįigure 1: Resolution comparison between nominal orbit images of the Apollo 17 landing site (a, b) and the new low orbit image (c 27 cm x 56 cm pixel size). Presenter: Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters Images and Multimedia in Support of the News Conference › Richard Vondrak, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. › Mark Robinson, principal investigator, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, Arizona State University, Tempe › Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

6, to reveal new images of three Apollo landing sites taken by the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. NASA will host a media teleconference at noon on Tuesday, Sept.

Lunar reconnaissance orbiter photos of apollo landing sites