DESCRIPTION AND
DATA SHEET

Apollo 12 Landing Site
Oceanus Procellarum, Moon

The Apollo 12 landing site (green cross) in southeastern Oceanus Procellarum is similar to the first Apollo landing site: flat.

On November 19, 1969, the Apollo 12 crew demonstrated the pinpoint landing capability of the lunar module by landing within 200 meters of the Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had landed there 31 months earlier. The astronauts retrieved pieces of the Surveyor spacecraft so that the effects of long-term exposure to space could be studied.

Basalt samples from Oceanus Procellarum are different than those from Mare Tranquillitatis (the Apollo 11 landing site). They are much lower in titanium and are approximately 500 million years younger.

The bright streak running vertically across the scene is a bright ray of material ejected from the prominent 93-kilometer-wide impact crater Copernicus, which formed 300 kilometers to the north of this site. Samples returned from this site suggest that Copernicus formed roughly 800 to 900 million years ago.


DATA SHEET    (Top)

Location:
     3.2 S, 336.6
Quadrangle:
     LAC 76
Mission:
     Apollo 12
Image Numbers:
     AS12-54-8090,
     AS12-54-8091
Image Resolution
(Full-Sized View):

     61 meters/pixel
Image Width:
     35 kilometers
Vertical Exaggeration:
     ~3 × Normal


©Lunar and Planetary Institute, 2000