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July 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 57

When Apollo 11 happened in real time,

people back home could follow along with

grainy, though exhilarating, video footage.

Yet they had little sense of where on the

moon the action was happening and how

far the astronauts explored. Now three-

dimensional computer models based on

recent satellite imagery can re-create each

step of the mission and the terrain it

covered. Based on a 2012 photograph of

the landing site from nasa’s Lunar Recon-

naissance Orbiter (LRO), a height map of

the surface shows the contours of the

moon where Neil Arm strong and Buzz

Aldrin traveled, as well as the positions

of the lander, the experiments and even

the astronauts’ footpaths.

Satellite imagery helps to preserve

details of the mission that will ultimately

be lost to time: extreme temperatures,

solar radiation and the unrelenting

bombard ment of micrometeorites on the

lunar surface are eroding the footprints

and will eventually wipe out even the

machinery. Little by little, Tranquility Base

is disappearing.

G THE MISSION

MODERN SATELLITE IMAGERY AND

3-D MODELING GIVE US A NEW VIEW

OF HOW APOLLO 11 PLAYED OUT

1969

APOLLO 11

ANNIVERSARY

2019

50

years

Text and graphics by Edward Bell

Little West Crater