Apollo Landing Sites in Stunning 3-D

By Nancy Atkinson - December 29, 2010 01:51 PM UTC | Planetary Science

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With the

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

constantly snapping images of the lunar surface, we have been able to see most of the Apollo landing sites with better and better detail. Image editing wizard Nathanial Burton-Bradford has now "3-D-ified" all the landing sites except Apollo 16, and by viewing these images with 3-D glasses (the ones with red and cyan lenses) the lunar landers are easily visible and really stand out. Other features such as tracks and experiments left by the Apollo astronauts become more visible as well. See more images below, and click on the images for larger versions, or see

Nathanial's Flickr page

for more!

[caption id="attachment_82033" align="aligncenter" width="543" caption="The Apollo 12 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, 3-D by Nathanian Burton-Bradford"]

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[caption id="attachment_82036" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Apollo 14 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, 3-D by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_82037" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Apollo 15 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, 3-D by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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[caption id="attachment_82039" align="aligncenter" width="543" caption="Apollo 17 landing site. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, 3-D by Nathanial Burton-Bradford"]

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And for good measure, here's one of the impact crater created by the Apollo 17 Saturn booster.

[caption id="attachment_82034" align="aligncenter" width="524" caption="The crater made by the Apollo 17 booster. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, 3-D by Nathanial Burton-Bradford."]

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com