Science Visualized Planetary Science

See how visualizations of the moon have changed over time

From Plato to Galileo to Chang’e, views of our lunar neighbor keep evolving

Astronomicum Caesareum moon image

LUNAR LOOKS  This section of a hand-colored woodcut from 1540 shows how astronomers began to stylize the moon by drawing it a face.

Michael Ostendorfer/metmuseum.org

By Cassandra Willyard

Look up at the moon and you’ll see roughly the same patterns of light and shadow that Plato saw about 2,500 years ago. But humankind’s understanding of Earth’s nearest neighbor has changed considerably since then, and so have the ways that scientists and others have visualized the moon.