Where In the Universe Challenge #21

Here’s this week’s image for the “Where In The Universe” challenge. Take a look at the image above and guess where in our universe this image was taken. Extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image as well. No peeking below before you make your guess. Ready? You may begin….

This is an image of Earth’s Moon, taken by the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft, currently in orbit of the Moon. Interestingly, this image shows the Apollo 17 landing site at the Taurus-Littrow Valley, located on the southeastern rim of Mare Serenitatis. A flat valley is surrounded by mountains which were made of ejecta rocks from the when this “sea” was created by an asteroid impact. Since Kaguya is in a polar orbit of the moon, this image looks down from the south to the north. The spacecraft’s Terrain Camera was used to create this 3-D-like image.

See more images from Kaguya here. There’s quite a bit of information included with each image. The resolution isn’t high enough to see any features from the Apollo spacecraft, however the red circle in the Terrain Camera image below encircles the potential “halo” by Apollo 17 lunar module “Challenger” engine exhaust plume.

How did you do?