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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Apollo 15: Driving on the Moon

Explanation: Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin works on the first Lunar Roving Vehicle , before he and fellow astronaut David Scott take it out for a drive. Sloping up behind the lunar module “Falcon” on the left are lunar mountains Hadley Delta and Apennine Front, while about 5 kilometers behind Irwin is St. George Crater. The explorations conducted during the Apollo lunar missions discovered much about our Moon , including that the Moon is made of ancient rock, that the Moon's composition is similar to Earth's, that life is not evident there, that the Moon underwent a great hot melting in its distant past, that the Moon has suffered from numerous impacts as shown by its craters, and that the Moon's surface is covered by a layer of rock fragments and dust.

Date February 23, 1996
Credit Credit: Apollo 15, David Scott, NASA
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.