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Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft sees moon craters in new footage - Space.com

Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft sees moon craters in new footage - Space.com

Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft sees moon craters in new footage - Space.com
Dec 06, 2022 1 min, 15 secs

You can spot the two large moon craters in a small telescope.

The Orion spacecraft released a fresh video showing two humongous lunar craters during a close Artemis 1 flyby on Monday (Dec. 5).

NASA did not identify the craters in its tweets (opens in new tab) or during live coverage yesterday (Dec. 5), but space journalist Philippe Henarejos suggests the big one visible near the video's center is Kepler, a 19-mile (31-kilometer) divot in the Ocean of Storms, which is approximately near the landing zone of Apollo 12.

Gassendi was the alternate landing site for Apollo 17, which touched down in the Taurus-Littrow region almost exactly 50 years ago on Dec.

"Complex craters occur above a certain diameter crater, the cutoff diameter is dependent on gravity, so it varies from planet to planet (or moon to moon)," NASA officials wrote (opens in new tab) of Kepler.

As for Gassendi, Apollo 17 was tentatively targeted for a region south of the central peaks rising in the crater, with the hopes of finding ancient rocks in the highlands, according to NASA.

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"However, engineering constraints kept Gassendi from becoming an Apollo landing site because it was uncertain if the terrain within Gassendi was too rough and dangerous for astronauts to successfully approach the central peak and obtain a sample," NASA officials wrote in another web page (opens in new tab).

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