Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2019

16 MAY-JUNE 2019 ASTRONAUTICS scribed in science fiction. The images also clearly showed flat and open spaces, as well as rocks and craters − an Apollo crew would have been able to maneuver in a safe place. A series of slightly accented ridges indicated that the sea was a solid- ified lava flow, and the presence of rocks implied that the sur- face would probably have supported a spacecraft. Thanks to the new knowledge acquired about this territory by Ranger 7, the International Astronomical Union, in August 1964, named the area Mare Cognitum (Known Sea). In February 1965, Ranger 8 followed a low trajectory from the west, taking it over the central highlands of Mare Tranquilli- tatis. This trajectory increased the surface coverage, but it also caused a perceptible blurring in the final images. A POLLO 11 − Aldrin assembling the seismic experiment. [NASA, Project Apollo Archive]