This color image of the Moon was taken by Galileo at 9:35 a.m. PST, December 9, 1990, at a range of about 350,000 miles. The color composite uses monochrome images taken through violet, red, and near-infrared filters. The concentric, circular Orientale Basin, 600 miles across, is near the center, the nearside is to the right, and the farside to the left. At the upper right is the large, dark Oceanus Procellarum; below it is the smaller Mare Humorum. These, like the small, dark Mare Orientale in the center of the basin, formed more than 3 billion years ago as basaltic lava flows. At the lower left, among the southern cratered highlands of the farside, is the South-Pole-Aitken Basin, similar to Orientale but twice as large in diameter and much older and more degraded by cratering and weathering. The cratered highlands of the near- and farsides and the Maria are covered with scattered bright, young ray craters. JPL image P-37329.

This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo’s imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon visible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon’s northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture. Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors; the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them. (JPL image P-41490).

This false-color image of part of the Moon was constructed from four images taken by Galileo’s imaging system as the spacecraft flew past the Moon on December 7, 1992. The images were processed to exaggerate the colors of the lunar surface for analytical purposes. Titanium-rich soils, typical of the Apollo 11 landing site, appear blue, as seen in Mare Tranquillitatis (left side); soils lower in titanium appear orange, as seen in Mare Serenitatis (lower right). Dark purple patches (left center) mark the Apollo 17 landing site and are ancient explosive volcanic deposits. Most of the lunar hiqhlands appear red, indicating their low titanium and iron content. (JPL image P-41477.)