Planets and Moons ID: 4302

Apollo 17 Landing Site

Visualizations by Ernie Wright Released on December 8, 2015

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.

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.

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).