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Friday, July 17, 2009

LRO Images the Apollo Landing Sites


These amazing photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaisssance Orbiter (LRO) show the closest ever orbital photos of the Apollo landing sites.

The Lunar Modules appear as a small white dot, but as the sun was at a low angle, their shadows are more prominent.







In the Apollo 14 image you can clearly see the tracks made by the Astronauts while they pulled their MET across the surface.



I have overlaid the Apollo 14 image over the Apollo 14 traverse map, and the features match exactly, with Doublet craters to the top left, and Triplet craters to the bottom right.
The LM and ALSEP also match up.

Cone Crater is not visible in this image, but is about 1 mile to the North East