The Highest Resolution Photograph Of The Moon Ever Taken

Whoa! I’ve never seen the moon look like this before! I always thought it was just a big boring blurry blob with a few craters in it. I bet this one picture will inspire school children everywhere to become more interested in astronomy.

This absolutely gorgeous photo is the highest resolution picture of moon ever taken… ever. According to Wired, “It’s the highest resolution, near-global topographic image of our lunar neighbor yet.” One measure of elevation is represented by one pixel, which is the size of two football fields side-by-side.

There is a whole color scheme here. The white parts are the highest and the purplish-pink parts are the deepest areas. The scale goes down in depth from white, red, orange, green, blue, purple and lastly, purplish-pink. You can read all the geeky details about what kind of camera was used, why it took so long to get this picture, and what scientists will be able to learn from it on the NASA website. This photograph (map) was made possible by the astronomers at Arizona State University who used NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to build it.