NASA has obtained new high-resolution radar maps of the Moon’s south pole–a region the space agency is considering as a landing site when astronauts return to the Moon in the years ahead.

“We now know the south pole has peaks as high as Mt. McKinley and crater floors four times deeper than the Grand Canyon,” says Doug Cooke, deputy associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “These data will be an invaluable tool for advance planning of lunar missions.”

Click on the image below to view a movie of the craggy landscape with simulated shadows twirling over the course of a complete lunar day:

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory collected the data using the Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California’s Mojave Desert. Three times in 2006, JPL scientists targeted the moon’s south polar region using Goldstone’s 70-meter radar dish. The antenna, three-quarters the size of a football field, sent a 500-kilowatt strong, 90-minute long radar stream 231,800 miles to the Moon. The radar illuminated the rough-hewn lunar surface over an area measuring about 400 by 250 miles. Signals were reflected back to two of Goldstone’s 34-meter antennas on Earth. Scientists have been analyzing the echoes ever since, and the data were released by NASA for the first time this week.

NASA has used the data to make a VR movie of a Moon landing from the point of view of the astronaut. Click here to watch.