Honestly, the Moon is having a bit of a moment. For decades, we sort of got used to the same grainy, black-and-white Apollo-era shots or the occasional high-altitude scan. But in the last few months, and specifically moving into 2026, the game has completely changed. We aren't just looking at "the moon" anymore; we’re looking at specific boulders, tiny fresh craters that weren't there a year ago, and the eerie, shadowed depths of the South Pole.
These new pictures of the moon aren't just for desktop wallpapers. They’re changing how we understand our closest neighbor's history. Between China’s Chang’e-6 mission hauling back far-side dirt and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) acting like a cosmic paparazzi, the level of detail is, frankly, kind of insane.
The "New Freckle" and Other Recent Discoveries
Just a few weeks ago, in late 2025, the LROC (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera) team spotted something they’re calling a "New Freckle." It’s a fresh impact crater. Now, "fresh" in space terms usually means a few million years, but in this case, it means now. This thing formed since the LRO entered orbit. It’s got these bright, spray-painted-looking streaks called ejecta rays that scream "I just got here."
It’s a reminder that the Moon is still being pummeled. No atmosphere means no shield. If you were standing there (and please don't, it’s a vacuum), you’d see these tiny pebbles hitting the surface at speeds that make a bullet look like a turtle.
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But the real drama is happening at the South Pole. Everyone is obsessed with the Shackleton-de Gerlache Ridge. Why? Because the shadows there are long, dark, and potentially hide the one thing we need to stay: water. The latest oblique views—basically "side-on" photos—show the rim of Shackleton crater in a way that looks more like the Himalayas than the flat, dusty ball we see from our backyards.
China’s Far Side "Selfies"
You’ve probably seen the news about Chang’e-6. It landed in the Apollo basin on the far side of the moon—the side that never faces us—in mid-2024. But the data and the high-res panoramas are still trickling out as of early 2026. One of the coolest shots wasn’t even of the Moon itself, but a "selfie" taken by a mini rover that Chang’e-6 dropped on the ground.
It shows the lander sitting there on the rim of a 50-meter crater. The ground looks different over there. It’s more "basaltic," basically meaning it’s made of cooled lava from billions of years ago. These new pictures of the moon show subtle color differences—reddish areas vs. bluish areas—that tell scientists exactly how much iron or titanium is in the dirt. It’s like a geological map, but way prettier.
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Why Artemis II is Changing the Perspective
Right now, NASA is gearing up for Artemis II. It’s scheduled for no later than April 2026. This is the one where humans—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—actually go back around the Moon.
They aren't just going for the ride. They’re taking high-end Nikon Z9 and D5 cameras. The Z9 is a beast—no mechanical shutter, 8K video, and it handles the "stark contrast" of space (where the sun is blinding but the shadows are absolute pitch black) better than anything we’ve sent before.
Think about that. We’re about to get 8K footage of the Earth rising over the lunar limb. Most of the Apollo photos were 70mm film, which is gorgeous but static. These new missions are going to give us "human-eye" perspectives of the Orientale Basin, a 600-mile-wide crater that sits right on the edge of the near and far sides.
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The Amateur Revolution
It’s not just the big agencies, though. If you head over to places like r/Astronomy, you'll see people taking "absurdly high resolution" photos from their driveways. One user recently posted a 33-million-pixel image. How? They don't just take one photo. They take 50,000 frames of video and use software to "stack" the clearest ones.
This gets rid of the "shimmer" caused by Earth's atmosphere. The result? You can see individual mountain peaks in the Montes Alpes region. It’s reached a point where an amateur with a 61-inch telescope can rival what professional observatories were doing twenty years ago.
Getting Your Own Look at the Moon
If you're tired of just looking at these images on a screen, you can actually track the same features the pros are looking at.
- Use LROC Quickmap: This is basically Google Earth for the Moon. It’s free. You can zoom in on the Chang'e-6 landing site or the Apollo 11 tracks.
- Watch the "Terminator": No, not the movie. The terminator is the line between light and dark on the Moon. This is where the shadows are longest and the craters look most "3D." Grab a pair of decent binoculars during a half-moon, and look right at that line.
- Follow NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio: They release "Dial-A-Moon" images every hour that show exactly what the Moon looks like right now, including the "libration" (the way the Moon slightly wobbles so we can actually see about 59% of its surface over time).
The Moon isn't just a dead rock. It’s a historical record of our solar system, and thanks to these new pictures of the moon, that record is finally coming into focus.
Next Steps for Lunar Observers:
Check out the NASA LROC Featured Sites gallery to see "Before and After" shots of recent spacecraft impacts. If you want to see the most recent data releases, search for the PDS (Planetary Data System) release 65A, which contains over 20,000 new images acquired late last year. For the best live experience, find a local "Star Party" or astronomy club during the next Waxing Gibbous phase—that’s when the shadows in the craters are most dramatic for amateur telescopes.