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An Astronaut's Snapshot of the Moon
1972-12-13
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0529n/
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
Panorama of the Taurus-Littrow valley on the moon. This Station 4 panorama shot by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan on 13 December 1972 shows the Taurus Littrow valley with astronaut Jack Schmitt standing 40 metres to the west beside the lunar rover at the edge of the 110-metre wide Shorty Crater. Cernan spent about two minutes shooting 37 pictures side-by-side (frame numbers AS17-137-20991 to AS17-137-21027). These have been used to create various panormaic views of the Station 4 site which was visited during the second of three moonwalks during the Apollo 17 mission. The lunar soil is tinted faintly orange between the lunar rover and the large boulder behind it, and on the sloping inner sides of the crater. The tint comes from 3.7 billion-year-old tiny orange glass beads created by volcanic fire fountains. These were buried in the soil and later excavated by the Shorty Crater impact, 20 to 30 million years ago. The low mountain directly behind the lunar rover is Family Mountain, six kilometres away (refs: Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report, NASA; Apollo 17 Mission Report, NASA).
