Lunar Farside Gets Highest Resolution Look Yet from LRO

By Nancy Atkinson - March 11, 2011 at 1:31 PM UTC | Planetary Science
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The first time humans were able to catch a glimpse of the far side of the Moon was back in 1959 when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft sent back 29 grainy images taken during its successful loop around the Moon. "What a surprise – the farside was a different world, geologically," said Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the camera on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. "Unlike the widespread maria on the nearside, basaltic volcanism was restricted to a relatively few, smaller regions on the farside, and the battered highlands crust dominated."

Since then, just a handful of spacecraft have taken images of the far side of the Moon, but now, Robinson has had a hand in creating the most detailed view yet of the farside of the Moon. A mosaic of the far side released today is comprised of over 15,000 Wide Angle Camera images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011.

"This WAC mosaic provides the most complete look at the morphology of the farside to date, and will provide a valuable resource for the scientific community," Robinson wrote on the

LROC website

. "And it's simply a spectacular sight!"

And how!

Every month, as LRO circles the Moon, the WAC gathers images to provide nearly complete coverage of the Moon under unique lighting. This mosaic knits together images all with similar lighting. As an added bonus the orbit-to-orbit image overlap provides stereo coverage, and even more images will be released on March 15.

"As the mission progresses, and our knowledge of the lunar photometric function increases, improved and new mosaics will be released!" Robinson said. "Work your way around the Moon with these six orthographic projections constructed from WAC mosaics."

Click here for more stunning, high resolution views of the Moon.

Source:

LROC

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