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Luna Surface from Apollo 8 Spacecraft

In August of 1968, three NASA astronauts received a call telling them to cancel their winter holiday plans — they were going to the Moon. Fifty years later we are celebrating the historic mission of Apollo 8: go.nasa.gov/2EDarq3

 

AS08-13-2224 (21-27 Dec. 1968) --- This oblique view of the lunar surface was taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft looking southward toward Goclenius and other large craters near 45 degrees east longitude and 10 degrees south latitude in the Sea of Fertility. Goclenius, the crater in the foreground with a rille-broken flat floor, is about 70 kilometers (45 statute miles) in diameter. One rille, approximately horizontal in this view, crosses both crater rims and the central peak, and, on adjoining Apollo 8 photographs, can be traced several kilometers across the mare surface beyond the high crater wall. In the background, the two large craters with smooth floors are Colombo A (left) and Magelhaens. Magelhaens A, the crater with the irregular floor, is about 35 kilometers (20 statute miles) in diameter.

 

Credit: NASA

 

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

 

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Uploaded on December 19, 2018