Apollo 16 astronaut John Young used a telescope to photograph star clouds, nebulae, and Earth’s outermost atmosphere from the Moon. It was the first telescope used to make astronomical observations from the surface of another planetary body.
The Moon itself is an exciting destination, but once the Apollo 16 astronauts landed, they used it as a viewing platform to look deep into the cosmos.
Astronauts Charles M. Duke Jr., the lunar module pilot, and John W. Young, the commander, spent a little under three days on the Moon in April 1972. Thanks to them, for the very first time, a telescope explored the vastness of space from the surface of another planetary body.
