Loading the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter into the thermal vacuum chamber at Goddard Space Flight Center. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard NASA LRO Mission.

Artist rendering of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO, above the moon. LRO carries seven instruments that make comprehensive remote sensing observations of the moon and measurements of the lunar radiation environment. The LRO mission is managed by NASA Goddard for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18163

Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO, have created the largest high resolution mosaic of our moon north polar region.

These graben - a kind of trench that is formed as a surface expands - were imaged near a region of the Moon called Mare Frigoris by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23237

This image of lobate scarps - a kind of curved hill - was taken near a region of the Moon called Mare Frigoris by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23236

This NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO image is of the summit crater of Hortensius Dome Phi. Summit craters of all the Hortensius Domes show no raised rims and are not circular, indicating they are analogous to volcanic calderas.

NASA is scheduled to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon, on June 18, 2009.

The Diviner instrument following integration to NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

New surface features of the Moon have been discovered in a region called Mare Frigoris, outlined here in teal. This image is a mosaic composed of many images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23209

Scientists have discovered these wrinkle ridges in a region of the Moon called Mare Frigoris. These ridges add to evidence that the Moon has an actively changing surface. This image was taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23210

Research using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission suggests that lunar swirls, like the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl imaged here by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, could be the result of solar wind interactions with the Moon's isolated pockets of magnetic field. Credits: NASA LRO WAC science team

Close-up of the Diviner solar calibration target. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard NASA LRO Mission.

This image shows final preparations being made for thermal balance testing of the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment at JPL. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard NASA LRO Mission.

The Diviner Instrument prior to shipment. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard NASA LRO Mission.

Diviner undergoing post thermal vacuum range of motion testing. Diviner is one of seven instruments aboard NASA LRO Mission.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – One of three solar panels is seen during closeout of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla. The satellite's primary mission is to search for water ice on the moon in a permanently shadowed crater near one of the lunar poles. LCROSS is a low-cost, accelerated-development, companion mission to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. LCROSS and LRO are the first missions in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020. Launch is targeted for no earlier than June 2 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., technicians remove red-tag items from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, before flight. The LRO will be mated with NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, spacecraft. Instruments on the LRO seen here are the LEND (bottom) that will measure the flux of neutrons from the moon and the LROC (above it), a narrow angle camera that will provide panchromatic images. The satellite's primary mission is to search for water ice on the moon in a permanently shadowed crater near one of the lunar poles. LCROSS is a low-cost, accelerated-development, companion mission to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. LCROSS and LRO are the first missions in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020. Launch is targeted for no earlier than June 2 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

Splendors of Mare Smythii

A bottleneck at the start of the lunar sinuous rille within Vallis Alpes formed several morphologic features including a lava pond, a breached dam, and an island in the rille in this image captured by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Crater Mendeleev

Hummocky Terrain

Moon seen from the East

Bright Ridge near Mons Hansteen

High-albedo marks on the lunar surface left by a boulder bouncing down the northeast wall of farside highlands crater Moore F in this image captured by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Kepler Crater - Central Peak

This image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a small secondary crater chain near the southwestern margin of Mare Orientale, within the Inner Rook Mountains. The ~125-meter-long chain lies within the Orientale multi-ring basin.

This image from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Vallis Lorca, one of four lobes that make up Aratus CA in western Mare Serenitatis near the Montes Apennius.

Most mountains on the Earth are formed as plates collide and the crust buckles. Not so for the Moon, where mountains are formed as a result of impacts as seen by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the floor of a crater in the Mare Frigoris.

Frozen impact melt flows on the ejecta blanket of the young impact crater Giordano Bruno in this image from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Gruithuisen Domes - Constellation Region of Interest

Rupes Recta

North Pole Mosaics

Boulders perched atop a wrinkle ridge in Mare Imbrium west of the Montes Teneriffe can be seen in this image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This image from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows dark materials excavated by later small impacts show up clearly on the bright ejecta of a small lunar crater to the west.

This image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the slopes of the Vallis Schröteri, Cobra Head are boulder-rich and display albedo variations -- bright to dark.

This image acquired by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a crater center of image formed by impact of the Apollo 14 Saturn IVB booster.

Landslide deposits seen on the steep interior slopes of Marius crater taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the floor of a l.2-km diameter crater in the Mare Frigoris.

This is a synthetic perspective view looking south from the Apollo 16 landing area, topography is rendered naturally as seen by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The linear rille Rima Ariadaeus is found on the nearside of the Moon, nestled between Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Vaporum in this image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Terraced Craters in Aitken Crater

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this anaglyph image is a close up view of Copernicus crater. 3D glasses are necessary to view this image.

This is a view from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of a very young impact crater in Balmer basin. The dark streamers are impact melt splashes thrown out during the crater formation.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a sinuous rille winding its way across a much larger rille in the heart of the Aristarchus Plateau.

This image acquired by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a crater center of image formed by impact of the Apollo 14 Saturn IVB booster.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spied a very subtle mare-highlands boundary in Mare Moscoviense on the lunar farside, near the center of the Constellation Program region of interest.

Small Crater in Oceanus Procellarum

Inside Catena Mendeleev

The Earth from the Moon

Rimae Bürg

Striated Blocks in Aristarchus Crater

Eratosthenes Crater and the Lunar Timescale

Ejecta from Van de Graaff Crater

Exposed Fractured Bedrock in the Central Peak of the Anaxagoras Crater

A junction between the rims of three craters on the floor of Peary crater near the lunar north pole is evident in this image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the ejecta blanket and rim of Timocharis crater in southeastern Mare Imbrium.

Impact Melt on Klute W Wall

Slice of Mare

Lunar Swirls at the Mare Ingenii

Overlapping petals of bright ejecta illustrate the complexity of ejecta emplacement, even in smaller impact events in image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Boulder in Recht Crater

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captures a debris flow extending down the southwest wall of Janssen K crater.

Forked Wrinkle Ridge

The western hemisphere of our home planet Earth. North (upper left), Central, and South America (lower right) were nicely free of clouds when LRO pointed home on 9 August 2010 to acquire this beautiful view. LROC NAC E136013771. As LRO orbits the Moon every two hours sending down a stream of science data, it is easy to forget how close the Moon is to the Earth. The average distance between the two heavenly bodies is just 384,399 km (238,854 miles). Check your airline frequent flyer totals, perhaps you have already flown the distance to the Moon and back on a single airline. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13519

Precise 3D Measurements of Objects at Apollo 14 Landing Site

Boulder Trails in Menelaus Crater

On April 14th 1970, the Apollo 13 Saturn IVB upper stage impacted the Moon North of Mare Cognitum, at -2.55° latitude, -27.88° East longitude. This image was taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Lunar South Pole

Erosional Trough on Crater Wall

This image is a NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter closeup of a small fresh crater with very dark ejecta highlands near Rima Bode II.

This NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows boulders on a wrinkle ridge in Mare Crisium.

Rima Calippus

New view of the Apollo 12 landing site in Oceanus Procellarum imaged from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mapping orbit.

Farside Northern Highlands

LROC Wide Angle Camera WAC visible to ultraviolet portrait of Copernicus crater

This high resolution image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the floor of the Apollo Basin, a large 538 km diameter double-ringed impact crater in the southern hemisphere of the far side.

A sinuous rille created by a lava flow snakes around the base of a massif in the Prinz-Harbinger region on the Moon in this image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Barnstorming Linné Crater

Another Small Volcano?

The central peak and fractured floor of Compton crater as imaged by the LROC Narrow Angle Camera onboard NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at dusk, image width is ~1720 meters.

Window to the Farside Mantle

High-albedo marks on the lunar surface left by a boulder bouncing down the northeast wall of farside highlands crater Moore F in this image captured by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a small portion of the rim of Erlanger crater. Much of its floor remains in permanent shadow due to its location near the north pole.

Constellation Region of Interest at Mare Tranquillitatis

The Marius Hills pit is a possible skylight in a lava tube in an ancient volcanic region of the Moon called the Marius Hills. This image was taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Orientale Basin

Scouring Secondary Ejecta

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows highlands terrain inside the Dante Crater.

Diverse textures on the floor of Saha E which could be the result of impact melt coating boulders and other deposits on the floor of the crater on the lunar farside in this image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Copernicus Crater and The Lunar Timescale

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter looks near the northeast edge of the unusually large melt pond adjacent to the lunar far side crater King.

Southern Rim of Menelaus Crater

Sinuous Chain of Depressions

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter looks at a terraced wall in Burg Crater.

Seeing small areas of the Moon at 50 cm per pixel often presents unexpected views, and sometimes it is hard to interpret the geology at first glance, much less what is up and what is down, as evidenced by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

One month after its first image of the Apollo 11 landing site was acquired, NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over the site again providing a new view of the historic site.

Hunting for Ancient Lunar Impact Basins

NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter first look at the Apollo landing sites.

Two small black arrows on today image taken by NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show the location of a small graben 28 meters in width in a pyroclastic mantling deposit in the SW portion of Mare Humorum.