GOOD PICTURE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31145, 23 August 1966, Page 17

GOOD PICTURE

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PASADENA, August 22.

History’s first good photograph of the far side of the moon—taken at an altitude of about 1000 miles—was radioed to earth yesterday from America’s Lunar Orbiter I spacecraft.

The picture, released by the United States space agency, shows dozens of large craters and hundreds of smaller craters on what appears to be a rough highlands area. As was expected, the far side of the moon is much like the near side, with the picture showing an area approximately 75 by 100 miles, centred on a point about 150 degrees longitude and five latitude. It shows far more detail than photographs of the far side taken by Russia's Luna HI spacecraft from an altitude of 40.000 miles in 1959, but the space agency gave no immediate interpretation of the picture. The photograph was taken by Lunar Orbiter early on Saturday using its high resolution camera system. It was radioed to earth yesterday afternoon. At the same time, the space agency released another photograph taken with the craft's medium resolution lens. It was also of the far side of the moon, covering about 590 by 220 miles, and was taken shortly before midnight on Friday.

In this photograph the moon's surface looks like a pot of mud frozen while boiling. In neither photograph were any areas apparently smooth enough for astronauts to land.