Moon | SpaceRef

Moon TOP STORY

Lunar Swirls Point to the Moon's Volcanic Magnetic Past

Reiner Gamma lunar swirl

The mystery behind lunar swirls, one of the solar system's most beautiful optical anomalies, may finally be solved thanks to a joint Rutgers University and University of California Berkeley study.

LRO Images SMART-1 Crash Site

SMART-1 Crash Site

This greyscale, mottled image shows a patch of the Moon's surface, and features an intriguing shape towards the top of the frame.

Moon

First Earthrise Image Taken 52 Years Ago Today

52 years ago today, on 23 August 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 snapped the first photo of Earth as seen from lunar orbit. While a remarkable image at the time, the full resolution of the image was never retrieved from the data stored from the mission.

Moon

Ice Confirmed at the Moon's Poles

In the darkest and coldest parts of its polar regions, a team of scientists has directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon's surface.

Moon

Lunar Meteorite Helps Explain Water On The Moon

A team of Japanese scientists led by Masahiro Kayama of Tohoku University's Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, has discovered a mineral known as moganite in a lunar meteorite found in a hot desert in northwest Africa.

Moon

NASA: Commercial Partners Key to Sustainable Moon Presence

As NASA shifts human exploration back to the Moon, U.S. commercial partnerships will be a key to expediting missions and building a sustainable presence on the lunar surface.

Moon

The Moon Holds The Key To Improving Satellite Views Of Earth

Many Earth observation satellites make use of an added ingredient to ensure reliable, good quality environmental data: the Moon.

Moon

Magma Ocean May Be Responsible For Moon's Early Magnetic Field

Around four billion years ago, the Moon had a magnetic field that was about as strong as Earth's magnetic field is today.

Moon

Tycho Crater As Seen From Lunar Orbit

For scientists, parts of the Moon's Tycho crater remain a mystery.

Moon

Aristarchus Plateau As Seen From Lunar Orbit

The Aristarchus plateau is an area of the Moon ripe for future exploration due to the diversity of its impact and volcanic materials.

Moon

Orientale Basin As Seen From Lunar Orbit

The Moon's Orientale basin is a massive lunar crater, about the size of Texas.

Moon

New NASA 4K Tour Of The Moon

Take a virtual tour of the Moon in all-new 4K resolution, thanks to data provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

Moon

Unraveling Ansel Adams's "Denali and Wonder Lake"

Legendary photographer Ansel Adams created many stunning black-and-white landscape images during his lifetime, and one of his most striking masterpieces is Denali and Wonder Lake (formerly known as Mount McKinley and Wonder Lake).

Moon

Studying At Lunar Landing Site At South Pole-Aitken Basin

The study, by planetary scientists from Brown University, maps the mineralogy of the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, a gash in the lunar surface with a diameter of approximately 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles).

Moon

The Moon's Water May be Widespread and Immobile

A new analysis of data from two lunar missions finds evidence that the Moon's water is widely distributed across the surface and is not confined to a particular region or type of terrain.

Moon

OSIRIS-REx Captures New Earth-Moon Image

As part of an engineering test, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and Moon using its NavCam1 imager on January 17 from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million km).