Universe Today

Close-up view of Apollo 12 landing site from LRO. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Wow! Just look at the detail visible in this image of the Apollo 12 landing site taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from its lower mapping orbit of 50 km above the surface. Compared to earlier images taken in September when LRO was in a higher orbit, the Lunar Module descent stage really stands out, as well as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP). Also visible are the trails left by spacewalking astronauts. From this and other LROC landing site images, it is clear that astronaut activity lowers the albedo, or reflectivity of the surface. Areas of heaviest activity have the lowest albedo, especially around the LM. NASA says this effect is most likely due to compaction of a very loose surface powder by the astronauts just walking around.

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maneuvered into its 50-km mapping orbit on September 15, which enables it to take a closer look at the Moon than any previous orbiter. This also allows for comparing previous images taken by LRO when it was at its higher orbit. Here's the Apollo 17 landing site: just look at what is all visible, especially in the image below! These images have more than two times better resolution than the previously acquired images.

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Times are tough, but you have to wonder what this guy was thinking. Stewart David Nozette, 52, who was involved in the recent discovery of water on the Moon by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has been arrested for espionage for allegedly trying to sell details of US missile detection satellites in exchange for cash. Nozette was attempting to sell classified information to a person who he believed was an Israeli intelligence officer. Nozette is a fairly prominent scientist who helped conceive the 1994 Clementine mission to the Moon, and currently is a co-investigator on Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Moon mission, and on an instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Zoomed in image of the impact plume. The extent of the plume at 15 sec is approximately 6-8 km in diameter. Credit: NASA

Nine science instruments on board the LCROSS spacecraft captured the entire crash sequence of the Centaur impactor before the spacecraft itself impacted the surface of the moon. But from Earth, any evidence of the plume was hidden by the rim of a giant impact basin, a 3 kilometer-high (2-mile) mountain directly in the way for Earth telescopes trained on the impact site, said Dr. Peter Schultz, co-investigator for LCROSS. Additionally, the crater created by the impact was only about 28 meters across (92 feet) but Schultz said the best resolution Earth telescopes can garner is about 180 meters (200 yards) across.
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Speaking of lunar impacts: While we await the science data from the LCROSS mission impact earlier this morning, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team has released this image of another impact on the Moon 38 years ago . The crater in the center of this image was formed by Apollo 14's Saturn IVB booster. The booster was intentionally impacted into the lunar surface on Feb. 4, 1971. The impact caused a minor "moonquake" that scientists used to learn about the moon's interior structure. Seismometers placed on the surface by the Apollo 12 astronauts returned data on the tremor.
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On June 2, 1966 the Surveyor 1 spacecraft soft landed on the Moon, the first US spacecraft to set down on another body. Now, 43 years later the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has spotted this historic spacecraft, sitting silently on the Moon's surface. The scene shows the spacecraft (annotated with an arrow, and the shadow shows up very well) just south of a 40 m diameter crater and about 110 m northwest of a 190 m diameter crater lined with boulders. The landing site is in the northeast corner of the Flamsteed Ring, a 100 km diameter impact crater almost completely buried by mare lavas such that all that remains exposed is the upper part of the original crater rim.
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has taken a second look at the Apollo 11 landing site. These images were taken before LRO reached its science orbit of 50 km (31 miles) above the Moon, but the lighting is different from the previous images it took of this region, providing more detail and a whole new look at this historic site. This time the Sun was 28 degrees higher in the sky, making for smaller shadows and bringing out subtle brightness differences on the surface. The look and feel of the site has changed dramatically. See below for a close-up view.
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has successfully completed its testing and calibration phase and is now in its science and mapping orbit of the moon. Already, the spacecraft has made significant progress in creating the most detailed atlas of the moon's south pole, and Thursday mission scientists reported some of the early science results, including "tantalizing" hints of water at the Moon's south pole. So far, the data returned from LRO’s seven instruments “exceed our wildest expectations,” said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center . “We’re looking at the moon now with new eyes.”
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India's Chandrayaan-1 will team up on August 20 to perform a Bi-Static radar experiment to search for water ice in a crater on the Moon's north pole. Both spacecraft will be in close proximity approximately 200 km above the lunar surface, and both are equipped with radar instruments. The two instruments will look at the same location from different angles, with Chandrayaan-1's radar transmitting a signal which will be reflected off the interior of Erlanger crater, and then be picked up by LRO. Scientists will compare the signal that bounces straight back to Chandrayaan with the signal that bounces at a slight angle to LRO to garner unique information, particularly about any water ice that may be present inside the crater.
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The recent images released by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Apollo landing sites are truly remarkable. But there is one instrument on board LRO that must avoid studying some of the the Apollo sites as well as other places where humans have placed spacecraft on the the lunar surface. The Lunar Orbiting Laser Altimeter (LOLA) pulses a single laser beam down to the surface to create a high-resolution global topographic map of the Moon. However, LOLA is turned off when it passes over the Apollo sites because bouncing the laser off any of the retro-reflective mirrors on experiments left by the astronauts might damage the instrument.
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As anticipated, NASA released images of the Apollo landing sites taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident. Also visible are the tracks left where the astronauts walked repeatedly in a "high traffic zone" and perhaps by the Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET) wheelbarrow-like carrier used on Apollo 14. Wow.

As a journalist, I (most of the time) try to remain objective and calm. But there's only one response to these images: W00T!

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The folks at Goddard Space Flight Center working on the the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have put together a flyover video from the first images taken by LRO's cameras. Just a little appetite whetter for all the good things to come from LRO. Enjoy!

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Woohoo! NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken its first images of the Moon! There are two cameras on board which combine to create the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. They were both activated June 30, and their "first light" images were of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator — the dividing line between day and night — making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission."
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its braking thrusters for 40 minutes early today, successfully inserting the spacecraft into orbit around the Moon. Over the next several days, LRO's instruments will be turned on and its orbit will be fine-tuned. Then LRO will begin its primary mission of mapping the lunar surface to find future landing sites and searching for resources that would make possible a permanent human presence on the moon. Also, early Tuesday, the companion mission Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) sent back live video as it flew 9,000 km above the Moon, as it enters its elongated Earth orbit, which will bring it on course to impact the Moon's south pole in October.
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