On the 40th Anniversary of the last Moon Walk

"To mark the 40th anniversary of the last human footsteps on the moon," Andrew Chaikin, author A Man on the Moon (Penguin, 2007), looks back "at Apollo 17's explorations, and I explain why I believe the moon is the solar system's "jewel in the crown," beckoning us to return.

YouTube, Published December 14, 2012

Approach to Taurus Littrow Valley

Taurus Littrow Valley from the east. View similar to what the Apollo 17 astronauts saw as they approached their landing in the magnificent Taurus Littrow Valley. (See "Taurus Littrow Oblique," September 29, 2012) LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) east-to-west oblique image pair, about 18 km wide field of view at center, M192703697LR, LRO orbit 13427, May 26, 2012; spacecraft (and camera) slewed 56.09° west from nadir, native resolution 2.79 meters, from 131.29 km over 20.01°N, 38.78°E [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University]. [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Mark Robinson
Principal Investigator
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC)
Arizona State University

The Apollo 17 astronauts landed in the Taurus Littrow Valley forty years ago today. One of their key science goals was to collect impact melt from the Serenitatis basin rim so an age date for this important basin could be established. Before the samples were returned most lunar geologists believed this basin to be relatively old amongst all lunar basins. When the age dates came in from the Apollo 17 highland impact melt samples it appeared that the Serenitatis basin was younger than previously thought (3.86 billion years), nearly the same age as the mighty Imbrium basin (young in terms of lunar basins!). Jack Schmitt and Gene Cernan sampled rocks from South and North Massifs and the Sculptured Hills, all three thought to be formed as part of the Serenitatis basin impact event.

Taurus Littrow valley to Taurus crater, the upper left corner (NW) is the eastern edge of the mare flooded Serenitatis basin. LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) mosaic: SM = South Massiff, NM = North Massif, SH = Sculptured Hills, arrow indicates Apollo 17 landing site, north is up, image field of view is 90 km wide [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The wisdom at the time was that the old relative age assignment of the Serenitatis basin derived from remotely sensed image data must be wrong. Perhaps the confidence of that interpretation was undermined by the relatively poor resolution of the then-existing orbital image data for much of the eastern portion of the nearside of the Moon.

The new WAC global mosaic and NAC high resolution views are allowing scientists to reevaluate many previously held ideas with much clearer data. A new look at the area around the Serenitatis basin using the geologic rule of superposition (Spudis and coworkers, 2011) with LROC images resulted in a confident determination that the Sculptured Hills are actually far flung ejecta from the Imbrium basin, and not Serenitatis basin material. In the WAC mosaic above you can see the hummocky Sculptured Hills formation on top of Taurus crater. Taurus crater in turn was formed on the rim of Serenitatis basin. Thus the Sculptured Hills formed after the Serenitatis basin formed, likely as ejecta from the Imbrium basin impact event.

Annotated version of the LROC Featured Image of Taurus Littrow valley, in a field of view about 18 km wide in center, small arrow indicates landing site, M192703697LR [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

What does this new finding mean? First, if the Sculptured Hills are really Imbrium ejecta it is possible (or even likely) that the Apollo 17 impact melts do not represent the formation age of the Serenitatis basin, but rather that of the Imbrium basin. If so, the evidence that there was a late cataclysm (a big short spike in impact events) just got a lot weaker. On the other hand, if those impact melts do indeed come form the Serenitatis formation event, the fact that Serenitatis is relatively old amongst lunar basins means the late cataclysm was even more compressed than previously thought! In fact, it would suggest that 13-25 of the larger basins all formed within a short period of 50 million years (short in geologic time). Either way, the new determination of the relative age of the Serenitatis basin results in a radical new evaluation of the sequence of events early in lunar history!

Apollo 17 CM above Taurus Littrow - Hasselblad frame shuttered from the LM Challenger as it passed over the Taurus Littrow Valley, note the command module America just visible in front of South Massif in the middle ground, from AS17-147-22464 [NASA].

Reflecting back on the fortieth anniversary of the last human landing on the Moon, and the new results of LRO and other recent missions, we can see that the Apollo landings were a fantastic start to our exploration of the Moon. Many questions were answered from data and samples collected during the Apollo era. Since then, many new discoveries about the Moon have arrived, and more key science questions have appeared. The work begun by Schmitt and Cernan is now being extended by LRO in preparation for the next generation of lunar explorers. With the LROC data we can now map out the best places to search for outcrops of Serenitatis rock (especially impact melt) and obtain a confident age date for this key basin, which in turn places many of the other the other large basins in their proper absolute age.

Here we have seen one example of how new observations are overturning previously held lunar ideas; there are many more examples! It is certainly an exciting time in lunar science as we more forward in this new era of lunar exploration and pave the way for a future human return to the Moon and then beyond.

Zoom in and examine the full resolution NAC oblique perspective of Taurus Littrow, and find key stratigraphic relations, HERE.

Download the Spudis et al (2012), HERE.

Previous LROC Apollo 17 Featured Images
Shorty Crater
Skimming the Moon
Exploring the Apollo 17 Site

Recent Posts:
Apollo 17 lands, ending the Apollo era, 40 years ago (December 11, 2012)
The last manned launch to the Moon (December 7, 2011)
Taurus Littrow Oblique (September 29, 2012)

Significant change in bombardment timing (January 6. 2012)
Just another crater? (December 13, 2011)

Apollo 17 lands, ending the Apollo era, 40 years ago

Taurus Littrow valley, from an oblique LRO Narrow Angle Camera perspective, a highly reduced original mosaic of the left and right frames of LROC NAC observation M192703697L. On December 11, 1972, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt descended in the Apollo 17 lunar module, with the terrain at their backs, waiting for the spacecraft to tip forward. Only then could they see the valley rushing up below. For a more detailed view of this spectacular oblique observation from LRO, see Taurus Littrow Oblique, Sept. 29, 2012 [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

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A closer, strikingly similar perspective from the Apollo 17 lunar module Challenger during its their final orbital pass over Taurus Littrow before descent and landing. Ron Evans, now alone, pilots the Command Service Module (CSM) America (center). See the much larger original image HERE (AS17-147-22465) [NASA/JSC].

Post landing pan from Jack Schmitt's window, a picture of a landscape untouched except by the descent stage moments before, later assembled into a high-resolution mosaic by Eric Jones for the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. View the original version of frames AS17-147-22469 through 22476 at ALSJ, HERE.

Near Station 6 on their third (and final) EVA, Schmidt put Challenger in some perspective, capturing this black and white image through a 500 mm lens from over 3 kilometers away. Though spacecraft since the Apollo era managed to resolve the patch of the surface disturbed by the thrust of the descent stage, the LRO alone was equipped and designed to photograph great detail of the Apollo landing sites from orbit since 2009 [NASA/JSC/ALSJ].

Related Posts:
Jack Schmitt holds fast to lunar vision (November 18, 2012)
Taurus Littrow Oblique (September 29, 2012)
LRO LAMP sharpens Apollo surface helium data (July 17, 2012)
Toxicity of Lunar Dust (July 2, 2012)
39 Years (and counting) (December 14, 2011)
Just another crater? (December 13, 2011)
Apollo metric camera maps completed (November 21, 2011)
Cernan says China will be first back to the Moon (November 8, 2011)
Cernan saw peace on Earth (March 14, 2011)
Too brief an expedition to a lobate scarp (August 24, 2010)
Moon geologically active, cooling and shrinking (August 19, 2010)
Graphite found in Apollo 17 samples (July 5, 2010)
Return to Moon, Schmitt says, important for protection of liberty (June 17, 2010)
Water found in Apollo samples (March 10, 2010)
Dr. Jack Schmitt salutes LROC's Mark Robinson and the LRO
camera team at Arizona State (November 10, 2009)
Apollo 17 from 50 kilometers (October 28, 2009)

Iconic picture (AS17-134-20384) of Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and geologist Harrison Schmitt, by Gene Cernan, soon after the beginning of their first EVA, December 11, 1972. Click on image for high resolution view [NASA/ASJ].

"O Say Can You See," The sixth U.S. flag is "still there," confirmed by a distinctive shadow, north of the Apollo 17 landing site, in one of many exceptional LROC high-resolution Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) studies of the Apollo landing sites, and at Taurus Littrow, where the last Apollo crew began their surface expedition 40 years ago, December 11. LROC NAC M165000580R, LRO orbit 9892, August 14, 2011; resolution 42 cm per pixel from 24.74 kilometers LROC Featured Sites [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].