Taurus Littrow Safari

Forum regular kodemunkey has written this week’s Image of the Week . This time he has chosen to highlight the Taurus Littrow region which 40 years ago was the landing site of Apollo 17.

Hello again moon fans. Today I will be showing you some of the sites (but no sounds) of the Taurus Littrow valley,  made famous for a short while as the last place that some puny little hairless apes decided to visit for a short while.

One of the Apollo crew collecting rock samples

The valley is named (perhaps unsurprisingly) due to it being in the Taurus mountain range and south of Littrow crater.  Some of the other landing sites that were considered were Tycho crater, which was rejected due to the rough terrain found there. Copernicus crater was seen as a low priority, and Tsiolkovsky crater on the far side was also considered, but later rejected due to the additional cost of having to put communication satellites in orbit.

Apollo 17 landing site, imaged by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

The reason for Apollo 17 landing here, was so they could sample older material which makes up the area, and fresher material, which was ejected from the impact that created Tycho crater.

What else is there to see in the area?

Amongst all the craters and rocks in the area, I have found a few interesting sites and I hope they inspire you to explore the area yourself.

This rather prominent crater:

This rather interesting rille edge:

And this is my favourite find, particularly so because I don’t think it’s been documented here yet:

Sources: Nasa, Wikpedia and WMS Image Browser

Nac Frames:
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M172696861LE
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M109045942RE
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/view_lroc/LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M177433351LE