Photo: Sunrise on the Moon

On June 10, 2011, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter angled its orbit 65* to the west, allowing the spacecraft’s cameras to capture a dramatic sunrise view of the moon’s Tycho crater. A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37*S, 348.68*E, and is about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. The summit of the central peak is 1.24 miles (2 km) above the crater floor. The distance from Tycho’s floor to its rim is about 2.92 miles (4.7 km). Tycho crater’s central peak complex, shown here, is about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide, left to right (southeast to northwest in this view). Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University. Larger images.