Crater Gallery

Astronaut Duke next to Plum Crater, Apollo 16

Exploring the Moon: astronaut Duke stands next to Crater Plum during the first excursion of the Apollo 16 mission. Duke is seen holding a bore sampling implement, used to take vertical profile samples of the lunar soil. On the far side of the 30 metre wide crater is the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Astronauts Duke and Young landed in the Descartes region of the Moon on 21 April 1972. During their 71 hour visit, they made three excursions on the surface totalling 20 hours 14 minutes, covering 26 kilometres in the LRV. After blasting off from the Moon, they rejoined astronaut Mattingly in the Command and Service Module, returning to Earth on 27 April 1972

© NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Saturns moon Dione, Cassini image

Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini image. The image is a composite of images taken at ultraviolet, green and infrared wavelengths. Dione has a diameter of 1123 kilometres and orbits some 377, 000 kilometres from Saturn. Although some craters are visible on its surface, their uneven distribution and the presence of overlying cliffs and valleys indicates that the surface has seen relatively recent geological activity. This image was taken on 24th December 2005 while Cassini was some 151, 000 kilometres from Dione

© NASA/JPL/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Panoramic view of Mars

February 27 to March 2, 2005 - This is the Spirit panoramic camera's Lookout panorama, acquired on the rover's 410th to 413th martian days, or sols (February 27 to March 2, 2005). The view is from a position known informally as Larry's Lookout along the drive up Husband Hill. The summit of Husband Hill is the far peak near the center of this panorama and is about 200 meters (656 feet) away from the rover and about 45 meters (148 feet) higher in elevation. The bright rocky outcrop near the center of the panorama is part of the Cumberland Ridge, and beyond that and to the left is the Tennessee Valley.
The panorama spans 360 degrees and consists of images obtained in 108 individual pointings and five filters at each pointing. This mosaic is an approximately true-color rendering generated using the images acquired through panoramic camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer, and 480-nanometer filters. The lighting varied considerably during the four sols that it took to acquire this image (partly because of imaging at different times of sol, but also partly because of small sol-to-sol variations in the dustiness of the atmosphere), resulting in some obvious image seams or rock shadow variations within the mosaic. These seams have been smoothed out from the sky parts of the mosaic in order to simulate better the vista that a person would have if they were viewing it all at the same time on Mars. However, it is often not possible or practical to smooth out such seams for regions of rock, soil, rover tracks, or solar panels. Such is the nature of acquiring and assembling large Pancam panoramas from the rovers.
Spirit's tracks leading back from the West Spur region can be seen on the right side of the panorama. The region just beyond the area where the tracks made their last zig-zag is the area known as Paso Robles, where Spirit discovered rock and soil deposits with very high sulfur abundances. After acquiring this mosaic, Spirit drove around the Cumberland Ridge rocks seen here and is now driving up the flank of Husband Hill, heading toward the summit

© Stocktrek Images