Gallery: Lunar Landing Sites: Then and Now
01lunar-reconnaissance-orbiter-video
Like kids traipsing through freshly fallen snow, Apollo astronauts left unambiguous tracks in lunar soil. Recently released [high-resolution NASA images](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/revisited/index.html) provide the best detail yet of the extent to which we have left our mark on the moon. Flying high above the moon’s surface, the [Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/lroimages/), or LRO, snapped these new pictures, which show details as small as 25 cm across. In them, you can see zigzagging paths that astronauts walked, crisp parallel lines from the lunar rover, and the many instruments and objects that remain from each mission. In comparison, images taken in 1966 and 1967 by NASA’s original [Lunar Orbiter missions](http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarorb.html) can only resolve the surface down to about 60 meters. While mankind has yet to send people to follow in the Apollo mission’s trail, the contrast between these photographs underscores how far we've come technologically in the intervening decades. __Above:__ Apollo 17’s Greatest Hits ------------------------- This video pans around the Apollo 17 landing site, showing off areas of interest seen from orbit and juxtaposing them with photographs the astronauts took while on the ground. *Video: NASA/Goddard/ASU \[[high-resolution version available](http://www.nasa.gov/mov/584427main_LROC_Explores_Apollo17.mov)\]*
02apollo-12-landing-sites
Apollo 12 --------- The winding adventures of the second [manned mission to the moon](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/moon-landing-gallery/) can be seen in the top image. Astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean took pictures and samples in 1969 as they wandered a roughly mile-long pathway around a crater complex. The photo shows the extent of their sojourn, making it all the way to the tiny Sharp Crater, seen lower left. The astronauts were also tasked with grabbing a small piece of equipment from a previous unmanned mission, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which lay beached on the eastern shore of Surveyor Crater. Data from this sample helped future missions plan for the extremes of heat, cold and radiation encountered on the lunar surface. The same craters — Head, Surveyor, Bench, and Sharp — can be seen prior to human exploration in the lower image, taken in 1967 by the Lunar Orbiter 3 spacecraft. *Images: NASA/Goddard/ASU \[[high-resolution version available](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/584398main_M168353795RE_25cm_AP12_area.jpg)\]*
03apollo-14-landing-sites
Apollo 14 --------- Astronauts [Alan Shepard](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/nasa-archive-astronaut-butt-mold-inspection/) and Edgar Mitchell landed in the area near Fra Mauro crater in 1971 and went on two moonwalks, using a golf-cart–vehicle to transport supplies and samples. As in other missions, the astronauts set up a suite of monitoring equipment known as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, or ALSEP, that beamed back data about the moon for more than seven years. These instruments can be seen in the upper picture as a dark spot at the end of one of the men’s pathways. Famously, [Shepard hit two golf balls](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/02/72572) with a makeshift 6-iron across the lunar surface at the end of one of the walks. (The balls are too small to make out but are estimated to have traveled 200 to 400 yards). In the lower image, taken in 1967, the same craters and regolith can be seen before they became a driving range. *Images: NASA/Goddard/ASU \[[high-resolution version available](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/584395main_M168319885_LR.25cm_ap14_area.jpg)\]*
04apollo-17-landing-sites
Apollo 17 --------- Unmistakable parallel [tracks from the lunar roving vehicle](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/planet-tracks/), or LRV, can be seen in the top image. Piloted by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, the vehicle itself is shown in its final resting place to the right and below the landing site. According to LRO principal investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, if you squint really hard, you can see that the rover wheels are turned slightly to the left. Zooming in on the landing site, minuscule gray dots mark the location of the two Portable Life Support System backpacks that astronauts wore as they roved around the lunar surface. Before ascending back to the Apollo capsule, Cernan and Schmitt shucked this equipment and left them behind along with their descent vehicle’s legs. The lunar soil is seen undisturbed in the lower image, with larger craters looming around, highlighting just how much more of the lunar surface there remains to explore. *Images: NASA/Goddard/ASU \[[high-resolution version available](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/584582main_M168000580LR_ap17_area_flat.jpg)\]*
