Monday, July 20, 2009

Happy 40th Anniversary, Apollo 11!

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin sets up a lunar experiment after he and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on the Moon, on July 20, 1969.
NASA

In a bit of timing that pretty much wasn't coincidental, NASA released the images below last Friday...showing 5 of the 6 Apollo landing sites as recently seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The Apollo 12 landing site should be photographed by LRO in the coming weeks. Before conspiracy theorists out there label these pics as your typical works of Photoshop, LRO has yet to settle into its final and lower orbit around the Moon...which means future photos of these landing zones should have much better resolution than the ones posted below. And hopefully, the future pics will be in color.


The Apollo 11, 15, 16 and 17 landing sites as seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) a few days ago.

The Apollo 14 landing site as seen by LRO a few days ago.

All Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images courtesy of NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center / Arizona State University

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