Like many complex craters on the Moon, Eratosthenes exhibits terraces (upper left) within its rim. Terraces form as the walls of the crater slump down, creating a landslide while leaving the upper portion of the wall intact. LROC NAC image M119924207R; image width is 600 meters (197 feet).

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.