PHOTOS: Lunar Orbiter Releases First Photos Of Moon

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which launched on June 18, just released its first images of the moon's pockmarked terrain.

The Orbiter consists of two narrow angle camera heads and a wide angle camera and will help NASA take photos and collect data for future missions.

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The pockmarked terrain of the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium, or Sea of Clouds.

Comments

[TJCole]

It's looks like it's still just a dead rock, to me..

How much did that cost us...?

[RTIII]

"Lunar Orbiter Releases First Photos Of Moon"

Newsflash!

People have been taking photos of the moon since photography was invented!

Someone didn't pass highschool english.
.

[KillTheMessenger]

Errr... logically it is (almost) correct. These are the first photos of the moon taken by this lunar orbiter. Please go back to your English teacher and ask them about the logic underlying the English language.

Now, there is a mistake, of course. The release of the photographs is by the LRO team or by NASA or by NASA's press department and not by the probe itself, which, of course, is just a camera in a particular location. Camera's usually do not release pictures, they just take them.

[DeeW]

lol

[jsarets]

The headline may be missing an "its", but headlines routinely omit pronouns and articles.

[SiriusMrE]

Beautiful pics! Again, what strikes me is the preponderance of chains of tiny (circular!) craters, especially along the rims of larger craters. What if these were not made by randomly falling debris?

"Once the impact hypothesis took hold, planetary scientists sought to replicate experimentally the unique patterns of cratering on the moon and elsewhere in the solar system. On occasion, news releases touted the "successes" of such experiments, but at a more fundamental and scientific level, where detailed cratering patterns demanded experimental confirmation, the experiments proved to be a colossal failure. High-velocity impact craters do not match the features of the lunar craters. Nor do they match up with the craters we observe so abundantly on the surface of Mars, or on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. This failure of impact experiments, however, does not appear to have been the subject of any news releases."
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060305moon.htm

[KillTheMessenger]

Why would debris be falling randomly? Like everything else in the universe, impacts obey the laws of physics, which make these impacts anything but random processes. Therefor it would be highly unusual to see truly random distributions of craters. What is difficult, of course, is to do ab-initio calculations of these impact patterns because we have a limited understanding of ejecta made by high speed projectiles.

[SiriusMrE]

"What is difficult, of course, is to do ab-initio calculations of these impact patterns because we have a limited understanding of ejecta made by high speed projectile­s."

That is precisely the point of the article I linked: "[T]he [high-impact] experiments proved to be a colossal failure" at reproducing the supposed ejecta patterns, especially for so-called "rayed" craters like Tycho. Maybe those tiny craters and crater chains were not made by impacting objects at all; maybe that's why it is so hard to model them with strict ballistics­...

[jsarets]

Asteroids collide with each other and fragment. Many small fragments can travel alongside the larger asteroid from which they separated and, upon impacting an even larger body, produce small craters around the rim of the larger impact crater. A trail of smaller fragments could produce a chain of small craters.

This hasn't been tested by experiments with impact vehicles, which only crash single objects into planetary bodies.

Also, you cannot compare lunar craters with martian craters because mars has an atmosphere with wind and, at one time, water to erode and reshape surface features over time. The moon hasn't experienced any erosive forces in an extremely long time, so all but the most ancient craters are almost exactly as they were after impact.

[Donns]

I really want to see pictures of the old Lunar Module platform that NASA left there almost 40 years ago.

[BrettnCalgary]

Impossible, they never happened. ;)

[KillTheMessenger]

They are planning on that later in the mission. You will be disappointed, though, LRO resolution is on the order of one meter per pixel (which is very good!) but that only maps the LEM platform to five or six pixels.

http://gizmodo.com/5309453/nasa-to-take-photos-of-lunar-landing-sites-end-conspiracy-theories

[jsarets]

There are six LM descent stages on the moon (Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17). There are also six wrecked LM ascent stages from those mission and one wreck of a complete LM from Apollo 10. There are also the two landers and two rovers (all unmanned) in addition to some more wrecks left by the Russians.

The Apollo missions also left reflectors on the lunar surface that we can hit with laser beams from Earth and have them bounce directly back to the source.

[Halfwit]

Wow! Who would have thought we'd ever see actual photos of the moon!

[DeeW]

lol

[ranchero42]

Hey! What was that thing waving back at me in the third frame?

[Hart Noecker]

These are the first photos of the moon? Ever? What?

[learntofly]

Did NASA just come clean?

[Donns]

Are you kidding NASA (Never A Straight Answer) come clean!

[MyDogJack]

Seriously? You are kidding right? We're talking first from the LRO, geesh.

[DeeW]

LOL - it is pretty funny. Who writes these headlines anyway.