On 25 May 1961 President Kennedy set Project Apollo in motion with his address to the US Congress setting out his plan, and scientists at the US Geological Survey embarked on the geological mapping of the Moon. Over the next 11 years, a team of 22 scientists and illustrator-cartographers created 44 superb maps – one for each named quadrangle on the nearside of the Moon.

Join Matthew Shindell, curator of Planetary Science at the Smithsonian, and rediscover these meticulously detailed, hand-rendered and airbrushed charts. Now – for the first time – the maps are plotted with key geological features and lunar landings, and paired with up-to-date satellite imaging and historic lunar photographs. For millennia, the Moon has been a source of wonder and symbolic significance as well as a tool for marking the passage of time. In 31 revelatory articles, a team of experts explores the role of the Moon in mythology and popular culture, and traces our evolving scientific understanding of the Earth’s natural satellite, from the creation of the prehistoric lunar calendar to the launch of the Artemis missions.