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Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands on the lunar surface during the first moon landing in 1969.
Credit: Apollo 11/NASA
NASA will release new photos of its Apollo moon landing sites on Tuesday (Sept. 6). It will be only the second time that high-resolution views of the lunar landing spots have been collected by a powerful unmanned probe circling the moon.
The photos were taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling our satellite since June 2009. The same spacecraft captured the first close-up views of the Apollo landing sites from above in July 2009.
"It was the first time we got imagery where we could make out the hardware, and in some cases even the footprints left by the astronauts," said space history and collectibles expert Robert Pearlman, editor of SPACE.com partner site collectSPACE.com. "It was giving us our first look at these landing sites from above in 40 years." [NASA's 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]
NASA hasn't said how many photos will be released next week, or which of the six lunar landing sites were imaged — though the images represent three different sites, according to a NASA statement.
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The agency will release the photos during a press conference at 11:45 a.m. EDT (1545 GMT). The conference will be broadcast live on NASA TV and streamed in a webcast.
