LROC images sites of the Apollo landings

by Zibi Turtle

ver the last week, as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiterteam's waited impatiently, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) has imaged all but one of the Apollo landing sites. The images released today show the sites of Apollo missions 11 and 14 through 17 (the Apollo 12 site will be imaged in the next few weeks).

LRO is currently in an elliptical orbit, so the pixel scales of the images vary somewhat from 1.0 to 1.4 meters (i.e., individual pixels in the images are between 1.0 and 1.4 meters across). By September, the orbit will be made circular and lowered to optimize surface mapping for investigation of potential landing sites for future human exploration of the Moon, at which point the already breathtaking resolution will improve by a factor of 2-3 (to a pixel scale of 0.5 meters).

The full images and much more information are available on the LROC website.

More information about the LRO mission can be found on the NASA and LRO websites.

Zibi Turtle is a research scientist in the Planetary Exploration group at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab. She is an associate of Cassini's imaging team and member of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team. Her research interests include impact cratering and planetary geology, e.g., lake formation on Titan, crater formation and modification, and mountain building on volcanic Io. When not sitting in front of a computer, she enjoys racing with the Baltimore Rowing Club, taiko, and playing with her nieces.