After taking his first step on the Moon (which he didn’t photograph), Armstrong reported (at 109:24:48 GET): “Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.”

This famous photograph was taken later in the mission by Buzz Aldrin to provide a visual record of the relative density of the surface in a “soil mechanics test” and is now one of the most iconic of the entire space program. ”'Most iconic’ is the mark of a boot on a surface unlike any found at home. Not a rocket, dazzling in its technology and power; not some beautiful, distant nebula; but a simple sign of man’s arrival on a surface beyond the Earth. Evidence that we have walked further. A step into that magnificent desolation.” Buzz Aldrin (Foreword, Space the first 50 years, Mitchell Beazley, Octopus Publishing Group, London, 2007).