NASA Creates Best Map of Moon Ever

[Vartok]

Scientists have stitched together the highest-resolution topographic map of the moon ever created, using observations made by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.

The new lunar map covers 98.2 percent of the moon and depicts the natural satellite's surface and features at a pixel scale of about 330 feet (100 meters). A global view of Earth's nearest neighbor at such high resolution had never existed before, scientists said.

"Our new topographic view of the moon provides the dataset that lunar scientists have waited for since the Apollo era," said Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, principal investigator of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), in a statement on Thursday.

V

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45362138/ns/technology_and_science-space/?ocid=twitter#.TscKEVbNRTE

[davekill]

Pretty cool, but what does it smell like?

Apollo 16's Charlie Duke and Apollo 17's Gene Cernan described the smell as "spent gunpowder". Duke said it was really strong. Talking to Mission Control, Cernan pointed out that it "smells like someone just fired a carbine in here", referring to the Lunar Module.

http://gizmodo.com/5860868/what-does-the-moon-smell-like?tag=space

[turtlesrock]

i've always wondered this...