The Taurus-Littrow Valley through LRO's Eyes

The camera flies low over the Taurus-Littrow valley, primarily east to west, arriving at the South Massif, where it tilts up to view the Earth. On December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed their lunar module, Challenger, in a lunar valley named for the Taurus mountain range and the nearby Littrow crater. Cernan and Schmitt spent three days exploring the valley before rejoining Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans in lunar orbit. This visualization uses imagery and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's cameras to show the terrain of the valley and the astronauts' view of the faraway Earth. Related pages

An animated view of Lee Lincoln scarp from above and from near ground level. This visualization is created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs and elevation mapping. The scarp is at the western end of the Taurus-Littrow valley, landing site of Apollo 17, and was explored by the astronauts on their second moonwalk. An animated view of Lee Lincoln scarp from above and from near ground level. This visualization is created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs and elevation mapping. The scarp is at the western end of the Taurus-Littrow valley, landing site of Apollo 17, and was explored by the astronauts on their second moonwalk. Music by Killer Tracks: Smoke and Mirrors - Gresby Race Nash.This video is also available on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. The Lee Lincoln scarp is a low ridge or step about 80 meters high and running north-south through the western end of the Taurus-Littrow valley, site of the Apollo 17 Moon landing. This lobate scarp marks the location of a relatively young, low-angle thrust fault. The land west of the fault was forced up and over the eastern side as the lunar crust contracted.In a May 2019 paper published in Nature Geoscience, Thomas Watters and his coauthors provide evidence that this fault and others like it are still active and producing moonquakes today. Seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts recorded hundreds of events between 1969 and 1977, including 28 shallow moonquakes. The study narrowed the locations of these quakes and found that many of them occurred near scarps, implying that the forces creating the scarps also caused the quakes, and they continue to shape the lunar surface. The Lee Lincoln scarp was only about 13 kilometers from one of the epicenters identified by the scientists.The Apollo 17 astronauts drove their lunar rover onto the scarp during their second day on the lunar surface, and this remains the only extraterrestrial scarp visited by humans. For More InformationSee [Shrinking Moon May Be Generating Moonquakes](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/moonquakes) Related pages

Visualization of the Moon as viewed from Earth at the time of the Apollo 17 Moon landing, December 11, 1972 at 19:55 UTC. Visualization of the Moon as viewed from the Earth at the time of the Apollo 17 return launch (when the LM left the surface of the Moon), December 14, 1972 at 22:55 UTC. A flyover visualization of the Taurus-Littrow Valley looking due west, with the Sun angle at the time of the Apollo 17 landing. This uses a 32-degree square inset of LOLA data at 512 points per degree (roughly 60 meters per pixel). An oblique image of the Taurus-Littrow valley taken by the LRO narrow-angle camera. This was cropped from M192703697LR. The Apollo 17 LM descent stage shadow is precisely centered in the image. The resolution is about 4 meters per pixel. A nadir view of the Apollo 17 landing site taken by the LRO narrow-angle camera. West is up, north is to the right. The early morning Sun angle is similar to the lighting at the time of the landing. The resolution is about 0.48 meters per pixel. This is part of M162107606L. A reverse-angle oblique view of Taurus-Littrow taken July 7, 2012, cropped and scaled from M1096343661. Looking east (slew angle 56°) with afternoon Sun (subsolar longitude 48°W). A full resolution detail from the reverse-angle view of Taurus-Littrow, centered on the LM descent stage. The horizontal resolution is roughly 0.75 meters per pixel. At Station 6, the astronauts collected samples from a boulder that had rolled down the side of the North Massif. The LROC image is a detail from M134991788R. See also this LROC featured image blog post. Panoramic image of the landing site. Another oblique image (M1182232465LE) of the Taurus-Littrow valley taken by the LRO narrow-angle camera on March 29, 2015. A nadir view of the Apollo 17 landing site derived from a mosaic of LRO narrow-angle camera images. West is up, north is to the right. The LM descent stage is centered horizontally and about two-thirds of the way down (y = 1983 pixels). AS17-134-20430, a panoramic view of the North Massif from Station 1, taken during the first EVA. Radar image mosaic of Taurus-Littrow from LRO's Mini-RF instrument. Missing data has been filled in with data from an LROC NAC frame. Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, was the final Apollo mission to the Moon. The Lunar Module Challenger landed in the Taurus-Littrow valley on December 11, 1972 and remained there for 75 hours. The landing site is a relatively flat spot among low mountains at the southeastern edge of Mare Serenitatis.The images here are designed for display on NASA's hyperwall. They help tell the story of Apollo 17's exploration of the Taurus-Littrow site using data and imaging from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and photographs taken by the astronauts. LRO's detailed and comprehensive remote sensing capabilities have fostered a reinterpretation of the geology of the site. Related pages