The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mankind has studied the moon more than the bottom of the oceans of Earth and while to many this maybe in doubt, the facts speak for themselves. NASA and star gazers around the Earth have taken millions of images of the moon during the past fifty years, while we are just starting to dive into the deepest depths of Earth's oceans.

Apollo 11 landing site of the Eagle

NASA has also just released a new batch of images and measurements of the moon, wondrous new views and maps of the moon have been added to the inventory of data and images humankind has collected on the moon. This batch was sent back to Earth by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which marks the fifth and final set of data for this spacecraft.

The new maps and images show three complementary views of the near side of the moon; the topography, surface slope values and roughness of the topography. All three images are also of the relatively young impact crater Tycho, a crater that hasn't been studied in depth before, but one that has been noted in previous moon studies. This time we're getting the best view of this crater and the surrounding area than ever before and the pictures show a surface you probably wouldn't want to walk on.

It of course makes sense that we studied the closest celestial body to Earth, once we did decide to venture forth beyond the boundary of our fears. Man will likely push the boundaries of exploration on both the bottom of the oceans of Earth and in the desire to travel to other planets in our solar system and stars in the galaxy in the decades to come. The bottom of the Earth is of course closer and therefore definitely easier to reach for mankind and during the adventure we'll certainly learn things that will help us survive once we venture forth into the unknown of space and time.

In a sense we are living in one of the most exciting times for science and the understanding of the world around us and in others humans are facing maybe the most troubling times of our existence on Earth. We can only hope that if we do venture forth into the unknown we take the good along with us and not just the bad human qualities, or we could be doomed to repeat the process all over again on another planet.