Fly me to the moon: A long lens further enhances the seemingly close juxtaposition of plane and moon over Falkenhagen, Germany on late Tuesday, May 29, 2012.

The highest resolution near-global topographic map of the moon ever created

What a little moonlight can do

Sunrise on the Moon On June 10, 2011, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter angled its orbit 65° to the west, allowing the spacecraft’s cameras to capture a dramatic sunrise view of the moon’s Tycho crater. A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37°S, 348.68°E, and is about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. The summit of the central peak is 1.24 miles (2 km) above the crater floor. The distance from Tycho’s floor to its rim is about 2.92 miles (4.7 km). Tycho crater’s central peak complex, shown here, is about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide, left to right (southeast to northwest in this view).

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

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This image, taken by the NASA Cassini spacecraft,  shows Mimas’ colossal impact crater 130 kilometers (81 mi) across *wider than Canada), named Herschel after the moon’s discoverer, Its walls that are approximately 5 kilometers  (3.1 mi) high, parts of its floor measure 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) deep, and its central peak rises 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) above the crater floor.The impact that made this crater must have nearly shattered Mimas: fractures can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas created by shock waves from the impact on the moon’s body.

Image Credit: Cassini Equinox

Getting a nice shot of the moon is a hard thing to do, but it’s definitely beautiful when you succeed. This is one excellent example and makes for a great wallpaper, too.

Submitted by Aditya G.