PASADENA: The first photograph of the moon taken by the ‘Ranger 7’ moon-probe vehicle was issued here yesterday [July 31]. In all, five photographs taken by the Ranger television cameras before it crashed on the moon’s Sea of Clouds were issued at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here where the Ranger was conceived. All showed, when projected on the laboratory, small craters previously invisible when the moon was viewed by telescope. An official of the Planetary and Lunar Laboratory of Arizona University said that the craters had been produced by blocks of rocks thrown from the Copernic Crater some 200 miles north of the Sea of Clouds where the Ranger crashed on to the moon.

He said: “This clearly shows that we are not dealing with a large area of dust — it’s not like sand.” NASA scientists had previously thought that the possible existence of thick dust might make a manned moon landing extremely difficult. One of the five photographs shown to the Press, taken from 1,000 feet, showed an area of the moon’s surface studded with craters. Some of these craters, clearly visible on the picture, were from 45 to 100 feet in diameter. The official indicated that the region where Ranger crash-landed would have to be avoided by astronauts.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2014