The Seas of the Moon

Astronomers of the past have named large, flat areas on the Moon's surface Mare, Latin for Sea. Whether or not they actually believed that these were real seas on our satellite, we now have the means to see what the Moon would look like, were it actually partially covered with water. The interactive map below uses altitude data from NASA's Clementine mission (I thank Larry Kellogg of Lunar Prospector fame for providing this "unofficial" data set).

To use this program, set the sea level altitude to the level of your choosing (meaningful values are between -5000 and 10000 meters), and click the Redraw button. On slower computers, it may take a bit of time for the map to update itself.

To see information on "live" planetary probes (alas, none near the Moon at the moment), please visit my Deep Space Probes page.