Flying over the Taurus-Littrow Valley

  • Released Monday, December 5, 2022
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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.

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Monday, December 5, 2022.
This page was last updated on Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 12:17 AM EST.

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