PIA13528: The Lunar North Pole
 Target Name:  Moon
 Is a satellite of:  Earth
 Mission:  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
 Spacecraft:  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
 Instrument:  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (WAC)
 Product Size:  1521 x 1521 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Arizona State University
 Other  
Information: 
More details and images at LROC
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA13528.tif (2.316 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA13528.jpg (528.4 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Summer-time at the lunar north pole captured by the LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC), width ~600 km, latitude ranges from 80°N to 90°N.

The lunar poles have long been places of mystery and promise. Since the Moon's spin axis is tilted less than 2 degrees relative to its orbital plane, the interiors of many topographic lows (mostly impact craters) never receive any direct sunlight. These regions are perpetually dark and thus very, very cold.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data.

Image Credit:
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Image Addition Date:
2010-10-05