PIA12884: First LROC Images


First LROC Images

Caption:

Full resolution detail from one of the first LROC NAC images. At this scale and lighting, impact craters dominate the landscape. Two general types of impact craters are readily identifiable. Solitary craters which most likely represent a single impact event, and clusters or chains of small, fresh craters produced by the impact of lunar material excavated by a larger impact. Image width is 1400 meters, north is down.

Background Info:

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, the LROC facility is part of the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE). LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Moon
System Earth
Target Type Satellite
Mission Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
Instrument Host Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (NAC)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), Wide Angle Camera (WAC)
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale, Impact
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2009-07-02
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12884
Identifier PIA12884