This week, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, there are special sessions devoted to the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission. Lunar sessions at LPSC are particularly special because they are almost always attended by the one and only geologist ever to walk on the Moon, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt. It's something else, I can tell you, if you're a young researcher who has delivered a talk about an Apollo sample, and then a bearded man walks up to the microphone during the question period and begins his comment with "When I picked up that sample on my EVA...."

Anyway, in honor of Jack and Apollo 17, here is a photo that (possibly) Jack took as the three astronauts in the America command module departed their most unearthly of field sites. I love perspectives on the Moon that show a face different to the one we see from Earth. Here we're looking at the eastern hemisphere; the elliptical dark feature near the top is Mare Crisium. Toward the bottom, you can see the dark shade and cluster of filled craters that marks the south pole - Aitken basin.