The first American spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon snapped this image of its own shadow on June 13, 1966, 11 days after its historic touchdown. It took thousands of pictures of its surroundings in the Ocean of Storms, a vast volcanic plain. It also confirmed that astronauts could land on the Moon without sinking into the dust, which was a concern expressed by some scientists. [NASA/JPL]
Find out more in our radio program entitled Surveyor 1.