![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Kuiper, already a leader in planetary science by the time he arrived in Tucson in 1960, sought to understand Earth’s celestial neighbor and worked for years to create multiple lunar atlases with the best photographs of the moon. Moreover, moon maps at the time were drawn by hand, and the names of many features remained unsettled. ![]() “To most 1950s astronomers, the planets did not seem very interesting, and there weren't very useful techniques for studying them.” “Back then, astronomers were interested only in objects outside our solar system,” Hartmann said. Hartmann and PSI co-founder Don Davis, another alumnus, also proposed that the moon was born from a giant impact with the Earth. “Classic astronomers regarded the moon as an annoyance that lit up the night sky, making it hard to study the faintest stars and galaxies,” said William Hartmann, one of Kuiper’s first graduate students and co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute, or PSI, in Tucson. Gerard Kuiper, the father of modern-day planetary science, led the team and established the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. The team imaged and mapped the lunar surface, which allowed them to understand the moon’s geology and NASA to choose landing sites for future robotic and Apollo missions. Among them was a small group of researchers at the University of Arizona. Kennedy announced in 1961 that Americans would walk on its surface by the decade’s end. Only a handful people were seriously studying the moon when President John F. (Courtesy of Lunar and Planetary Laboratory) William Hartmann projected photographic plates of the moon onto a white hemisphere to create the Rectified Lunar Atlas. ![]()
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