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LROC image of the Apollo 11 landing site, acquired Nov. 5, 2011

Nov. 5, 2011 from an altitude of only 15 miles (24 km). This is the highest-resolution view yet of the Apollo 11 landing site

Lunar Module’s descent stage, a seismic experiment monitor, a laser ranging reflector (LRRR, still used today to measure distances between Earth and the Moon) and its cover, and a camera can be discerned in the overhead image

The discovery of "significant amounts" of water in moon rock samples collected by NASA's Apollo astronauts is challenging a longstanding theory about how the moon formed

Since the Apollo era, scientists have thought the moon came to be after a Mars-size object smashed into Earth early in the planet's history, generating a ring of debris that slowly coalesced over millions of years

That process, scientists have said, should have flung away the water-forming element hydrogen into space

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites

interactive shows two LRO images of the Apollo 17 landing site. Click and drag on the white slider bar to wipe from one to the other

This interactive shows two LRO images of the Apollo 12 landing site. Click and drag on the white slider bar to wipe from one to the other

Last year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos announced that he had located some of the Apollo F-1 rocket engines and planned to recover them

his Bezos Expedition team were successful in recovering engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the Moon and have now brought “a couple of your F-1s home,”

There is no indication so far from Bezos of which flight these engines were from

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has located the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines and plans to recover them

using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface

making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor

So far, robotic rovers have reached out to the moon and Mars, with astronauts actually driving a lunar car on the moon during NASA's Apollo program

Leading the pack is an oldie of a space mission: the Soviet-era Lunakhod 2. This huge moon rover drove 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the moon during its 1973 mission and is currently the world champion for off-world driving, winning the gold medal

In second place

image of the Apollo 11 landing site captured from just 24 km (15 miles) above the surface provides LRO's best look yet at humanity’s first venture to another world

Armstrong and Aldrin's surface activities were quite restricted. Their tracks cover less area than a typical city block

Apollo 15, 16, and 17, which had the benefit of a Lunar Roving Vehicle

Apollo XIII rescue

In 1970, an explosion during the Apollo 13 mission led to one of the most spectacular rescue missions in US space history. The explosion aboard the Odyssey spacecraft left the crew stranded for four days more than 200,000 miles from Earth. An oxygen leak forced the Apollo 13 astronauts to abandon ship and return in lunar module. Against all odds, the three astronauts and thousands of others brought the capsule safely back to Earth. The astronauts were Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, and Commander Jim Lovell, and the mission was to have made the third manned landing of the moon

: In the movie, mission controllers huddle in a side room and try to figure out how to stretch the resources of the lunar module — designed to carry only two men for a couple of days — into a four-day lifeboat to support three men.

somewhat true, NASA already had a preliminary lifeboat procedure simulated

Somewhere in an earlier sim [simulation], there had been an occasion to do what they call LM lifeboat, which meant you had to get the crew out of the command module and into the lunar module, and they stayed there

Billionaire Jeff Bezos announced plans to recover from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at least one of the F-1 engines that carried the Apollo 11 rocket into space

If one engine is raised, he imagines the agency would make it available to the public at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C

Should he recover more than one, he has asked NASA to consider making the second one available at the Museum of Flight in Seattle

Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and he eventually earned the rank of Eagle Scout

was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award

July 18, 1969, while flying towards the Moon inside the Columbia, he greeted the Scouts: "I'd like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho having a National Jamboree there this week; and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes". Houston replied: "Thank you, Apollo 11. I'm sure that, if they didn't hear that, they'll get the word through the news. Certainly appreciate that

Finding water in the moon's crust, the scientists say, implies that the moon's rocks could have taken longer to crystallize than previously thought

NASA's Clementine spacecraft found evidence of water ice after scanning the surface with radar in 1996

follow-up observations with the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico suggested the spots where it found ice were in areas with too much sun for ice to survive

Apollo 13 launch

1970, Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission, began with the successful launch of the spacecraft Odyssey from Cape Canaveral with crew James Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert. Two days later, on 13 Apr disaster struck 200,000 miles from earth. A liquid oxygen tank exploded, disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water. Swigert reported: “Houston, we've had a problem.” The lunar landing was aborted. After circling the moon, the crippled spacecraft began a long, cold journey back to earth with enormous logistical problems in providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow a safe return. On 17 Apr, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean