The Moon 'a Little after Full', 1868.

One of two albumen print enlargements of the Moon by A Brothers, from original photographs of 1868 by the American lawyer and astronomer Lewis M Rutherfurd (1816-1892). Like all the other planetary bodies in the Solar System, the Moon has been subjected to a continuous bombardment from space by meteorites and asteroids of various sizes. The darker areas, known as maria (seas), are basins created by huge impacts, which then flooded with molten lava. They are more recent features than the lighter coloured heavily cratered highlands of the Moon.