The Apollo Missions: Traces on The Moon

in #moon6 years ago (edited)

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In this picture you can see the traces of the mission Apollo 17 on the moon's surface.

How many times have the Americans landed on the Moon? I think the correct answer to this question is known mostly the Americans. The rest of the world certainly remembers that they were there at least 1 time.

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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin- The first people on the Moon

I'm not trying to offend anyone, it's just the phenomenon of "1st" in our minds. History and the whole world remember pioneers. Who was the first human to journey into outer space? Yuri Gagarin. Who was the second? It's time to use Wikipedia…

So, back to the Moon. Actually, the Americans landed on the Moon 6 times in the period from 1969-1972 in the framework of the Apollo program. The missions Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were successful. Only Apollo 13 failed to reach the surface of the Moon because of an accident on board, when it was close to the orbit of the satellite.

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The locations of all the successful Apollo missions. image source

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I highly recommend you visit this website: http://quickmap.lroc.asu.edu - detailed map of the Moon in high resolution. You can find all the landing spots of the Apollo at the following coordinates: Apollo Landing Site Coordinates

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Also recommend you to see the farside of the moon and its poles. The map contains a large set of filters that output the data collected by various satellites.

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The Apollo program was attended by 26 people, but only 12 lucky stepped on the Moon, and none of them did it twice.

Landing a man on the moon is one of the most popular conspiracy theories. And one of the main arguments of its supporters is a simple and logical question: If people were on the Moon, why can't we see traces of their stay? Where are the pictures of the lunar surface with the lunar modules?

The problem was that the technologies for a long time did not allow to see such small objects on the surface of the Moon. Yes, we have a huge space telescopes that can see far-far galaxies, but they work quite a different way.

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That's how Hubble sees Pluto. Here you can read why.

Observation of the surface of planets and satellites require other tools. It is necessary to send the spacecraft with the optical systems of high resolution directly on the orbit of the object. Only in recent years we managed to expand our technical capabilities in this direction.

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Rate the detail and picture quality of the surface of the earth, made by Planet Labs satellites- the most modern system for observing the surface of our planet with a resolution of 3 to 5 meters per 1 pixel.
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Photo, at the beginning of the article, was made by the NASA LRO, the maximum shooting resolution of which is 30-40 cm per 1 pixel! The diameter of the lunar module of Apollo is only 4.3 meter!

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The location of the objects at the landing site Apollo 17. image source

The possibility of obtaining such a high resolution is associated with a low satellite orbit. The minimum altitude for earth's satellites is 190 km, otherwise they will burn up in the atmosphere. Lunar satellites can descend to a height of 20 km from the surface of the Moon.

No less surprising is that the landing site have not changed in 50 years. In the future, when we will fly to the Moon as tourists, these places can become historical monuments, like the Egyptian pyramids.


A small bonus: Photos of all the Apollo modules on the moon's surface.


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The funny thing about how humans think - we are able to blind ourselves when we want to continue believing something, and those who claim we have never been to the moon, still say so. I guess you have to, if you want to believe the world is flat - or is carried on the back of a giant turtle (why turtle - why not donkeys? Aren't they better beasts of burden?).

I love the moon and often find it in my poetry. Nice post.

Well, The Moon inspires the sensitive souls thousands of years.
Thank you.

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