Parting Moon Shots from NASA's GRAIL Mission

Astronaut David R. Scott, right, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, gets a close look at the sample referred to as "Genesis rock."

NASA created this chart in 1967 to illustrate the flight path and key mission events for the upcoming Apollo missions to the Moon.

Six photos from Ranger 9 as it approached the lunar surface.

The LRO camera team has discovered more than two-dozen new impact craters – including an 18-meter-wide crater caused by a bright flash on March 17, 2013.

This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun.

The phase and libration of the Moon for 2018, at hourly intervals. Includes supplemental graphics that display the Moon's orbit, subsolar and sub-Earth points, and the Moon's distance from ...

Astronauts: James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, and Russell L. Schweickart Stresses the testing of the Lunar Module, the spacecraft that will land men on the Moon. Featured are sequences of launch, ...

Global map of crustal thickness of the moon derived from gravity data obtained by NASA's GRAIL spacecraft.

Astronaut Richard F. Gordon, Apollo 12 command module pilot, participates in simulation training at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

Three images of Tycho crater and its central peak, located at 43 S, 11 W, on the Moon.

The Moon orbits the Earth in the months prior to the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse.  

The Apollo 11 Command and Service Modules are photographed from the Lunar Module.

On Aug. 23, 1966, NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 snapped the first photo of Earth as seen from lunar orbit.

The rising Earth above the lunar horizon as seen from the Apollo 8 spacecraft.

Set to Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune, this visualization uses Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data to show the stark beauty of evolving light and shadow near sunrise and sunset on the r...

Ranger 8 camera B image of the Moon about 5 seconds before impact.

In the fall of 2011, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission released its original Tour of the Moon, a five-minute animation that takes the viewer on a virtual tour of our nearest neighbor i...

A view of the Apollo 11 lunar module "Eagle" as it returned from the surface of the Moon to dock with the command module "Columbia".

Mark your calendars: a series of three supermoons will appear on the celestial stage on Dec. 3, 2017, Jan. 1, 2018, and Jan. 31, 2018.

This is the first footage of one orbiting robotic spacecraft taken by another orbiting robotic spacecraft at Earth's moon. 

The three crew members of Apollo 8 were the first humans to leave Earth orbit and the first to travel around the Moon.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surfac...

Four Ranger 8 Camera P images taken on 20 February 1965 from a distance of 20 km about 9 seconds before impact on the Moon.

A photographic record of the moment NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was struck by a meteoroid.

Views of the Apollo 11 landing site from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken on separate occasions when the Sun was at different points in the sky over the site.