Gallery: The Moon Has Its Own Paparazzi
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This photograph of the moon’s South Pole captures its varying elevations in different colors. The low-lying deep blue and purple area is the Aitken Basin, the moon's biggest impact crater.
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The moon looks black and white to the naked eye. But the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera's filters show its true colors.
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This image of the moon was taken at noon, a time when you can see subtle differences in the moon’s surface brightness. The dark material is volcanic mare basalt, which formed from lava during the moon’s early history.
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A section of the Linne crater, shown with topographic contours that scientists derived using a digital terrain model.
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Scientists rephotograph the same areas on the moon to find new craters and other changes to the surface.
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An oblique view of the mountains in the Plasket crater near the moon's north pole.
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The Sun never rises very high above the horizon at the Moon’s poles. The long shadows make mapping this region difficult.
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One of the moon’s crater’s, photographed in vivid detail.
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The moon’s pole’s are largely shrouded in darkness on the moon’s poles, making mapping difficult. This map of the moon’s south pole was made from thousands of images taken throughout the lunar year. It shows what percent of a year each area is sunlit.
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This image shows the central peak in the Tycho crater.
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This large collapsed area shows lava flows. Scientists say the absence of impact craters and steep sides suggest they erupted relatively recently.
