The Taurus-Littrow Valley through LRO's Eyes

  • Released Friday, March 23, 2018
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This visualization of the Taurus-Littrow valley, site of the Apollo 17 Moon landing, uses multiple Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter datasets to zoom into the valley and illustrate the paths taken by the astronauts during their three days of exploration at the site. The data includes wide-angle (WAC) and narrow-angle (NAC) camera images, LOLA laser altimetry, and a high-resolution elevation map created from NAC stereo pairs. The imagery was chosen to approximately match the lighting conditions at the time of the landing. Color-coded trails with numbered stops (called stations in astronaut lingo) show where Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt drove their lunar rover — orange on day 1, blue on day 2, and green on day 3.

The camera flies into the Taurus-Littrow valley, revealing the path taken by the astronauts in the lunar rover during Apollo 17's three EVAs.

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, March 23, 2018.
This page was last updated on Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 12:11 AM EST.

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