Lunar Impact Craters and Surfaces

High-resolution images of lunar terrain featuring various impact craters, surface textures, and geological formations in grayscale. Evokes a sense of desolation and exploration.

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

A Myriad of Geologic Processes in Terra Cimmeria

Impact Melt Features in Tycho Crater's Floor

If a meteorite breaks in two shortly before hitting the ground, the typical bowl shape of a single impact crater becomes doubled. This image is from NASA's Mars Odyssey, one of an 'All Star' set.

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows Aricia Tholus, a dark hill located in asteroid Vesta's Marcia quadrangle. Tholus is a word used to describe a small dome-like mountain or hill. Aricia was the name of a city in ancient Italy.

The Pit Within

A portion of the rugged rim of Occator Crater is seen in this image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Occator, a young crater approximately 80 million years old.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured this tortured landscape just south of Ghanan Crater on Ceres on May 28, 2016, at a distance of about 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface.

Volcanism on Mercury

This picture from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a network of canyon-like features near the center of Ezinu Crater on Ceres. Ezinu measures about 72 miles (116 kilometers) in diameter and was named for the Sumerian goddess of grain

Ancient Lava Plain in Thaumasia Planum

Boulders and simple craters perched on top of Kepler crater's central peak.

Embayment relationship is displayed where mottled plains material laps up against higher standing plains material in this image from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The embaying material could be lava or possibly mud.

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft is located in Marcia quadrangle, just south of Vesta's equator. It has a scalloped shaped rim and the top part of the rim is more degraded than the rest.

Blasting Away

Easy as 1-2-3!

This Dawn framing camera (FC) image of Asteroid Vesta shows Licinia crater, which is the large crater in the center of the image. Licinia has a fresh, sharp rim that is scalloped in shape. Around the side of Licinia crater there are many streaks of dark and bright material cascading towards the crater's center. This image is located in Vesta's Floronia quadrangle, in Vesta's northern hemisphere. NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Oct. 11, 2011.

The Ghost In You

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a detailed view of three craters, informally nicknamed 'Snowman' by the camera's team members.

The Impact of Cratering

Crater Degradation

New Angle on Degas

Craters in Caloris

This mosaic of the surface of asteroid Vesta was made from images obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft while the area was entirely in the sun's shadow. Light reflecting off of other areas of Vesta provides the only illumination.

April Fool's Crater

As Goethe as It Gets

Peak Rings on Mercury

As NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft drew closer to Mercury for its historic first flyby, the spacecraft's Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) acquired an image mosaic of the sunlit portion of the planet.

Terraced Craters in Aitken Crater

Sharing is Caring

This is a close-up view of the zones where the soil at Curiosity's landing site was blown away by the thrusters on the rover's descent stage. The excavation of the soil reveals probable bedrock outcrop.

Images from the MESSENGER spacecraft that flew by Mercury

Dark Side of the Force

This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 22, 2015, from a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) with a resolution of 1,600 feet (480 meters) per pixel.

This image, taken by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, shows a portion of Patapsco Vallis, a channel located on the eastern margin of Elysium Mons.

NEAR Historic First Image from Eros Orbit

Behold Bartok

Eros Closest Approach Mosaic

Sample of Mid-latitude Southern Highlands

This view of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on December 10, 2015, shows an area in the southern mid-latitudes of the dwarf planet. It is located in an area around a crater chain called Samhain Catena.

High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos' Face

NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped this shot of cratered Dione as it flew by the Saturnian moon on Oct. 17, 2010. The large crater at the center of the image is Erulus.

Crater Ejecta Morphology

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter takes a look at a fresh crater on the southwest rim of Metius B crater.

Close-up of the moon, Apollo 15 landing see red dot in photo, fourth manned moon landing

Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe

Pahinui Crater

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a crater at upper right with a sharply defined rim. To its left is an older impact crater whose features have been softened by a blanket of material, likely ejected from a nearby impact.

An Appointment with Mr. Yeats

Cassini looks down upon Rhea, whose cratered surface was already ancient before any complex life developed on Earth. The terrain seen here has probably changed little in the past billion years

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows craters with both sharp and smooth rims. The most obvious is the large crater in the bottom left of the image.

Basaltic Crater in Color IR

Perfect Hit

Polygon on Mars

Apollo 15 landing site on the moon.

The northern and southern hemispheres of Dione are seen in these polar stereographic maps of the north pole, mosaicked from the best-available clear-filter images from NASA's Cassini and Voyager missions.

Crisscrossing Caloris

Eroded, Layered Cratered Highlands of Eastern Arabia Terra

Get Ready for an Adventure!

Hovnatanian's Close-up

Two small black arrows on today's image taken by NASA's 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.

Among the highest features seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Ceres so far is a mountain about 4 miles (6 kilometers) high, which is roughly the elevation of Mount McKinley in Alaska's Denali National Park.

Mariner Crater

This mosaic of daytime infrared images of Gusev Crater, taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, has been draped over topography data obtained by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor.

NASA's New Horizons scientists believe that the informally named feature Wright Mons, located south of Sputnik Planum on Pluto, and another, Piccard Mons, could have been formed by the 'cryovolcanic' eruption of ices from beneath Pluto's surface.

S71-44670 (31 July 1971) --- A near vertical view of the crater Tsiolkovsky on the lunar farside, as photographed by the Fairchild metric camera in the Scientific Instrument Module (SIM) bay of the Apollo 15 Command and Service Modules (CSM) in lunar orbit. This view is looking northerly. The coordinates of the crater's central peaks are 128 degrees east longitude and 20 degrees south latitude. The mare area measured from east to west is approximately 145 kilometers (90 statute miles) across. The three-inch mapping camera was one of eight lunar orbital science experiments mounted in the SIM bay.

De Graft's Drama

This computer generated mosaic from NASA's Mariner 10 is of Mercury's Tolstoj Quadrangle, named for the ancient Tolstoj crater located in the lower center of the image.

A First Look at Terrain Near Mercury's North Pole

Arsia Mons Lava Flows

Using Shadows to Measure Crater Depths

Rimshot!

This photograph of Mercury, taken by NASA's Mariner 10, shows two prominent rayed craters. Bright halos extend as far as 2 crater diameters beyond crater rims. Individual rays extend from halo.

Filled Crater

This close-up view shows the rover Curiosity's parachute and back shell strewn across the surface of Mars. The image was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter about 24 hours after the parachute helped guide the rover to the surface.

Room for Two

Lohse Crater Dunes

1960S Craters On Lunar Surface Moon Copernicus Region

Exposed Fractured Bedrock in the Central Peak of the Anaxagoras Crater

Oblique view of the moon's surface photographed by astronauts orbiting in Apollo 10 Date: 1 May 1969

Hecates Tholus

Pretty Sharp

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on Aug. 26, 2011. This image was taken through the camera's clear filter. The image has a resolution of about 260 meters per pixel.

Fonteyn Crater

Sweet Soul Sister

Sander, Munch, and Poe are a trio of impact craters within the Caloris impact basin. Munch and Poe were recently named, while Sander received its name in the first set of feature names after MESSENGERs first Mercury flyby.

Starry Hour

Constellation Region of Interest at Mare Tranquillitatis

This is a portion of a high-resolution swath of Pluto sweeping over the cratered plains west of NASA's New Horizons' encounter hemisphere and across numerous prominent faults, skimming the eastern margin of the dark, forbidding region of Cthulhu Regio.

Paint It Black

AS10-29-4321 (18-26 May 1969) --- An Apollo 10 oblique view of the western portion of the Sea of Tranquility. The area in the picture is located approximately 70 nautical miles east-southeast of Apollo Landing Site 2. The flat terrain pitted by moderate-sized craters is typical of this portion of Mare Tranquillitatis.

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows two overlapping impact craters on asteroid Vesta. The rims of the craters are both reasonably fresh but the larger crater must be older because the smaller crater cuts across the larger crater's rim.

Now You See Me...

A Trio of Craters on Eros

Mare Orientale Flyover

In Focus: Timgad Vallis

Apollo 15 - A Close Up View of Tsiolkovsky Crater

Albor Tholus by Day and Night

. Tycho Crater's Peak

AS11-42-6237 (20 July 1969) --- An Apollo 11 oblique view of the large crater Theophilus located at the northwest edge of the Sea of Nectar on the lunar nearside. Theophilus is about 60 statute miles in diameter. The smooth area is Mare Nectaris. The smaller crater Madler, about 14 statute miles in diameter, is located to the east of Theophilus. Visible in the background are the large crater Fracastorius and the smaller crater Beaumont. The coordinates of the center of this photograph are 29 degrees east longitude and 11 degrees south latitude.

This illustration depicts a possible area through which the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover could traverse across Jezero Crater as it investigates several ancient environments that may have once been habitable. The route begins at the cliffs defining the base of a delta produced by a river as it flowed into a lake that once filled the crater. The path then traverses up and across the delta toward possible ancient shoreline deposits, and then climbs the 2,000-foot-high (610-meter-high) crater rim to explore the surrounding plains. About half of this traverse could be completed in Perseverance's prime mission (one Mars year, or two Earth years). For reference, the prominent crater near the center of the image is about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across. This mosaic is composed of multiple precisely aligned images from the Context Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and has a resolution of 20 meet (6 meters) per pixel.

of 4