The 3-D Moon

This Apollo 10 stereo pair (AS10-32-4848 & 4849) shows the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility as indicated by the yellow dot. The area immediately around the landing site is flat and devoid of craters and so was considered safe to land on. Elsewhere we see different-sized craters, some crater chains, and a few hills and rilles (long narrow valleys). The large crater at the bottom is Moltke, about 4 miles (6km) in diameter. Below Moltke, the shallow Hypatia rilles that stretch 75 miles

This is a close-up view of the surface containing small lunar rocks, some of which are cracked. The Apollo 11 astronauts were equipped with a "walking stick" containing a close-up stereo flash camera that could photograph an area of the surface some 3x3 inches square (8x8 cm sq.). The Moon's surface has been heavily pitted with micrometeorite craters and covered by a layer of dust and debris from surrounding craters. The soils were found to be very powdery and contained some small shiny spherical particles.

A crater chain inside a large lunar crater, some 200 miles (300km) southwest of Tsiolkovsky crater. Most crater chains form from streams of ejected blocky debris thrown out during a crater impact that fall back onto the lunar surface some distance from the original crater. Ejected debris striking the ground at a shallow angle produces elongated craters. Individual craters in a chain may sometimes overlap as is seen in this photo.

Some of the larger craters on the Moon have central peaks. Central peaks are thought to be due to rebound from stresses released after crater formation. Tsiolkovsky, the lunar far-side crater shown here, is 115miles (185km) in diameter. Basaltic lava has flooded the crater's floor giving it a dark smooth appearance. Material from landslides can be seen around the edge of the floor.

This is a computer-generated 3-D view of a digital elevation model, with an ortho-image overlaid, that was extracted from an Apollo 15 Metric camera oblique stereo pair (AS-15-M3-1445 & 1446, orbit 35). The outer western rim of Tsiolkovsky crater shows the remains of a huge landslide. The stereo effect has been greatly exaggerated here to enhance detail present in the feature.

Two small volcanic shield-like domes can be seen in the top and lower right of this photo of the area just north of the large crater Aristarchus. There are also six examples of sinuous rilles which all start from small volcanic craterlets. The remnants of the Aristarchus plateau lie in the lower half of the photo.

The Montes Haemus (Haemus Mountains) at the southwestern highland edge of the Mare Serenitatis Basin. The darker and smoother Mare Serenitatis is visible in the top right. The large crater at the bottom right is Sulpicius Gallus, named after a Roman astronomer, and is 7.5 miles (12km) in diameter. Several rilles are present along the Mare Serenitatis floor, and lie parallel to the mountains. In the highlands some grooves can just be seen. The grooves may be gouges from large block-like material thrown out from the Imbrium impact basin just beyond the top left of this picture. Several small volcanic domes are visible on the plains.

Much of the Earth-facing side of the Moon is covered in dark mare material consisting of volcanic basalt rock. Shallow raised wrinkle ridges and many winding sinuous rilles are evident in this photo. In the center is the 14 mile (22km) diameter crater, Krieger. The north-east trending sinuous rilles come from the direction of the Aristarchus plateau just outside the lower portion of the photo

The yellow dot marks the location of the Apollo 15 landing site near Hadley rille. The landing occurred on a dark mare plain called Palus Putredinis or Marsh of Decay. Hadley rille is a sinuous channel about 1300 feet (400 m) deep and about 4300 feet (1300 m) wide near the landing site. The Hadley C crater next to the rille is about 3 miles (5km) in diameter. The prominent mountain to the upper right of the landing site is Mt. Hadley. The Apennine mountains, to the right, form part of the southwest rim of the huge Imbrium impact basin and stand up to 2 miles (3km) above the surface. Sunken rilles (graben) lie parallel to this impact basin rim. The large Apennine mountain closest to the landing site is Hadley Delta. The 6 mile (10km) diameter crater Aratus is visible in the lower right. Apollo 15 was the first mission in which astronauts drove a lunar rover. Three surface excursions were made totaling 18.5 hours of manned exploration.

The yellow dot marks the location of the Apollo 16 landing site. Apollo 16 landed on April 21st 1972, some 30 miles (50km) west of the Kant plateau. This was the first and only attempt to land in the relatively rough lunar highlands. At the landing site a few of the small craters were found to have glass-coated bottoms resembling cracked and wrinkled dry mud in appearance. The large degraded crater along the bottom edge of the picture is Descartes (30 miles or 48 kilometers in diameter). Using the lunar rover, the astronauts made visits to the surrounding craters.

The yellow dot shows the landing site of Apollo 17 - the last manned mission to the Moon. Apollo 17 landed on the floor of a deep narrow valley containing dark soil. The valley is bounded on three sides by highlands which form part of the eastern rim of the Serenitatis basin. Using the lunar rover, the crew traveled 19 miles (30km), a distance equivalent to the diameter of the partly buried Littrow crater, found half-way between the center and the upper-right corner of the photo. During the mission the astronauts discovered some orange soil that turned out to consist of colored glass beads which had been produced during volcanic eruptions. (Apollo 17 Metric stereo camera photo AS-17-M-446 & 447, orbit 13/14)

This is the full Moon in 3d.