Salt and Pepper Craters | Space Wallpaper

By Space.com Staff
published

Craters at the Moon’s south pole 1920
This space wallpaper shows the dark and shadowed regions of the Moon that fascinate astronomers and Pink Floyd fans alike. (Image credit: ESA/SMART-1/AMIE camera team; image mosaic: M. Ellouzi/B. Foing)

This space wallpaper shows the dark and shadowed regions of the Moon that fascinate astronomers. Our Moon’s rotation axis has a tilt of 1.5º, meaning that some parts of its polar regions never see sunlight – the bottoms of certain craters, for example, are always in shadow.

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.