If you’ve read this previous post, you might have detected a bit of doubt from this author about the official story of the Moon landings back in the late 1960′s and early 70′s.
If you were surprised by that revelation, then maybe you haven’t seen the latest evidence NASA has offered as proof the Moon landings were real.
Back in 2009, around the 40th anniversary of the first alleged Moon landing, NASA released photos taken by their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.
The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.
Of course there are larger images than the ones I posted above, but they pretty much tell the same story. If it weren’t for the labels, you wouldn’t know what you were looking at.
To be fair, NASA said that the orbiter hadn’t “reached its final mapping orbit”, so when it does, I’m sure they’ll release even clearer images of these landing sites.
Well, wait no longer, because this week NASA did just that.
NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.
This interactive shows two LRO images of the Apollo 17 landing site. Click and drag on the white slider bar to wipe from one to the other. The left image was released today; the right image is a zoom-in on an LRO image released in 2009. LRO was moved into a lower orbit to capture the new image. The images do not line up perfectly because of differences in lighting conditions, angle of the LRO Camera, and other variables. Image brightness and contrast have been altered to highlight surface details. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/ASU)
So let’s compare.
Apollo landing site taken in 2009:
Apollo landing site taken in 2011:
Well, I’m glad they cleared that up. I don’t know why I every doubted them. In fact, if you click on the larger images they provide, the evidence becomes even more compelling.
Take for instance this image of the Apollo 17 landing site labeled “maximum resolution”. The detail is quite striking. You can clearly see the foot prints in the lunar soil.
Of course, I’m being facetious. I actually created that image with MSPaint. I know I may have fooled some of you, because it’s so similar to the quality of images NASA has posted, but I’m sorry it’s not really from NASA’s archive.
Now I know what some of you might be thinking. “For crying out loud, these pictures aren’t bad! They’re taken from miles away, in outer space. Let me see you do better!”
The sad thing is NASA has done better.
Martian landscapes
Since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings – very cold, dry and distant, yet real. (35 photos total)
The clarity is striking, isn’t it? Go ahead and check out the other hi-resolution images at The Big Picture. Don’t forget, Mars is considerably further away than the Moon.
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