"The Picture of the Century" – Oblique View into the Heart of Crater Copernicus, 24 November 1966
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) American
Not on view
On November 24, 1966 a camera outfitted on the Lunar Orbiter II captured this oblique view of the Moon’s Copernicus Crater. Transmitted back to Earth and disseminated on the front pages of newspapers, the image offered humankind an unprecedented view of the satellite. Whereas previous lunar photographs presented the moon's topography from a bird's-eye view, this photograph depicts the rim of the massive crater—which is visible from Earth—from just 28 miles above the surface. In a single image, the alien moon was transformed into a familiar landscape, compared in the popular press to that of the American West, and man's conquest of the moon seemed not only possible, but imminent.
