This is probably old news now, but it is worth a visit if it is still news to you. The clever folk at Google have put up a site with a zoomable and pannable map/image of the moon’s surface (functioning just like the satellite images of the earth’s surface they now supply on their maps site), starting out focussed on the region on the moon where various moon landings took place. Note that July 20th is the annivesary of the first moon manned (as opposed to some other life-form) landing on the moon, which took place in 1969.
Check it out here. (
I found this first on Dynamics of Cats.)
Be sure to note especially the amazing and indeed surprising detail that you can see if you zoom all the way in.
-cvj
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Thanks. I hadn’t seen the google moon, so it was new news to me.
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:29 pm
That is just great!
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Yawn. April 1st was like months ago.
July 23rd, 2005 at 12:14 pm
The map certainly shows a great limitation in mercator projections. The biggest crater on the moon, Clavius, is on my screen near the bottom center, below the 12 and 14 landing sites. The Mare Orientale impact basin on the left side looks puny, despite being one of the largest structures on the moon.
July 23rd, 2005 at 1:21 pm
Perhaps someone needs to do a Peters projection of the moon. -cvj