Space History Photo: Orange Soil Discovery

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By NASA Archives
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An image shows the orange-soil discovered during the second Apollo 17 EVA in 1972 and the gnomon, a geology hand tool used by astronauts. (Image credit: NASA.)

In this historical photo from the U.S. space agency, a view of the area at Station 4 (Shorty Crater) showing the highly-publicized orange soil which the Apollo 17 crewmen found on the Moon during the second Apollo 17 extravehicular activity (EVA-2) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site.

The tripod-like object is the gnomon and photometric chart assembly which is used as a photographic reference to establish local vertical Sun angle, scale and lunar color. The Gnomon is one of the Apollo lunar geology hand tools.

Each weekday, SPACE.com looks back at the history of spaceflight through photos (archive).

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NASA Archives
NASA Archives
U.S. Space Agency

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