Take an Ultra-Detailed Tour of the Moon With This NASA Video

A new video will give you a tour of the Moon as you've never seen it, courtesy of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The 4K-resolution visualization posted by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, spotted over at CBS, was created using image data collected by the spacecraft since it began orbiting the Moon in 2009.

NASA narrates a guided tour that explores features like the Moon's South Pole, the famous Tycho Crater, the Aristarchus Plateau, and the Apollo 17 landing site in the Taurus-Littrow Valley.

The high resolution of the imagery allows you to clearly see things like the mysterious 328-foot-wide boulder on top of Tycho Crater's central peak and the Apollo 17 lunar lander and rover that still sit on the surface of the Moon.

The video explains the importance of the sites pictured and what the LRO data can tell us about the Moon's structure and characteristics, like how studying shadows on the Moon's North Pole can help us scope out sites for future solar power generators. Gravity measurements from the Orientale Basin may reveal the structure of the lunar crust there, and temperature readings and reflectance could alert us to potential water ice at the South Pole.

Take your own personal tour of the Moon in the video below.