← Another date

Birthday · December 10, 2022

America and the Sea of Serenity

December 10, 2022

Another birthday means another year in which the universe got to experience itself through your particular combination of wonder and will.

America and the Sea of Serenity

A little universe, just for you

Your date.
Ready to give.

Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed

Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.

Change the year

APOD published December 10, 2022. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the image

America and the Sea of Serenity

Original APOD · December 10, 2022

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo view of another world. Fifty years ago the scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972, one orbit before descending to land on the Moon. The stereo anaglyph was assembled from two photographs (AS17-147-22465, AS17-147-22466) captured from his vantage point on board the Lunar Module Challenger as he and Dr. Harrison Schmitt flew over Apollo 17's landing site in the Taurus-Littrow Valley. The broad, sunlit face of the mountain dubbed South Massif rises near the center of the frame, above the dark floor of Taurus-Littrow to its left. Piloted by Ron Evans, the Command Module America is visible in orbit in the foreground against the South Massif's peak. Beyond the mountains, toward the lunar limb, lies the Moon's Mare Serenitatis.

Explore December 10 in other years