Moon Steps

NASA has just released some photos taken of three of the Apollo moon landing sites:

Talk about making a lasting impression: NASA has just released photos that show in never-before-seen detail traces of human activity on the moon -- including the tracks of a moon rover and the footprints of astronauts from as far back as 40 years ago.

The images were taken by a NASA orbiter and show the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. In a video released by NASA, research scientist Noah Petro explained that the images were taken with an instrument called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. The camera has been orbiting the moon about 31 miles above its surface, but scientists were able to adjust the orbit so that the camera temporarily dipped down as low as 13 miles.

Petro described the images as "jaw-dropping."

"At the Apollo landing site we can see where the lunar rover parked on the surface," he said. "We can see where it drove around the lunar module, you can see the areas where the astronauts kicked up the dust when they walked around."

See the photos at the link. Interesting stuff.