“I’ve looked around, and all I really see are the spots where the flag was planted,” Robinson said. Robinson himself compared the new pictures with images taken from the missions to help pinpoint some of the bright objects on the surface, such as experiments, thermal blankets and life support backpacks used on moonwalks that were discarded by astronauts before they blasted off from the Moon.Īnd for those interested in whether the planted American flags from the Apollo missions are still standing, Robinson said it is difficult to know for sure. The sharper views also allow scientists to more accurately identify objects and pieces of hardware that were left on the Moon. In a more practical sense, it allows us to find the exact spot where samples were collected.” “They tell us something about the photometric properties of the Moon - why are they darker? Scientists are working to investigate that question. “From a science standpoint, are important for two reasons,” Robinson said. In particular, being able to clearly see tracks and equipment on the Moon - and their relative brightness or darkness on the Moon’s surface - can reveal important clues about the lunar environment.

Scientists and historians alike are hoping they will help paint a clearer and more detailed picture of the Apollo missions. 6 depict three different lunar landing sites: Apollo 12, Apollo 14 and Apollo 17. The new batch of images NASA released Sept. Since Robinson is well aware of what the lunar rovers look like, he said he “can actually see, if you squint really hard - can begin to resolve the seats and the left wheels that are slightly turned to the left.” The crisscrossing footprints can be easily distinguished from the tracks left by the astronauts’ lunar rover. In one image of the Apollo 17 landing site, the last tracks left by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on the Moon are visible. “The images look very spectacular, as you can see for yourself,” Mark Robinson, an Arizona State University scientist who is the principal investigator for the LRO camera, said in a news briefing. The new views from the spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera are only the third time that close-up pictures of the landing sites have been snapped and resolved by the unmanned spacecraft. The pictures were taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a robotic probe in orbit around the Moon.

The images include the sharpest views yet of tracks left by the astronauts and their lunar rovers.

6, showing extraordinary new details about three areas on the lunar surface that were visited by humans. NEW YORK - New photos of several Apollo landing sites were released Sept.

Lunar landing sites