Largest digital image of the Moon

On 18 June 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to map the surface of the Moon. During a four-year period starting on 11 December 2011, the LRO captured the north pole of the Moon in stunning detail. Using two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) and a Wide Angle Camera (WAC), a digital picture was created from a mosaic of capture images with a complete coverage from 60°N to the north pole with a pixel resolution of 2 metres. The LRO team assembled a total of 10,581 images into a 680-gigapixel image (681 billion pixels) of the Moon's north pole region that measures 2.54 million km² – just larger that the combined area of Alaska and Texas. The final compressed image is 950 gigabytes in size.

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