Seeing Stars: Apollo landing sites on the Moon

Gaze up at the Moon this month and see where humans stepped onto another world over 50 years ago.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their lunar module ‘Eagle’ on a broad dark lava plain on the Moon’s the Sea of Tranquility.

Six hours later, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the surface of a world beyond Earth.

Altogether, Armstrong and Aldrin spent over 21 hours on the Moon and they collected around 20kg of rocks which they brought back to Earth.

After their explorations they blasted off in their ascent module from the Moon’s surface to meet up with Michael Collins in the command module orbiting overhead and the three astronauts returned safely to Earth landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo missions took astronauts to the surface of the Moon. A seventh mission, Apollo 13, famously failed to land on the Moon, but the astronauts survived a flight around the Moon.

Did you know that it is possible to see all six Apollo landing sites on the Moon from here in the west of Scotland?

I should point out that it’s impossible to see the hardware the astronauts left behind from here on Earth. None of our telescopes can see anything Apollo-related on the Moon, not even the Hubble Space Telescope.

To see the equipment left on the Moon by the astronauts requires a satellite in orbit around the Moon such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which can dip as low as 50km from the surface which is close enough to photograph each landing site in detail.

However, for us back on Earth, your eyes, or better still a pair of 10x50 binoculars will get you familiar with the general locations of the Apollo landing sites on the Moon.

You will have to pick your nights to see them for yourself as the landing sites are spread across the Moon.

There will be some days when the Moon shows as a crescent in the sky, for example, leaving some of the landing sites in darkness.