Astronaut Charles Duke Explored the Moon’s Surface in a Lunar Roving Vehicle, 1972

Captured here: Space Age: Astronaut Charles Duke explored the moon’s surface in a lunar roving vehicle as part of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, making him the tenth and youngest person to ever walk on the moon. It was taken in 1972, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

The 1970s had a grittier texture than the decades before it — economic shocks, urban decline, and political distrust, but also bold fashion, muscle cars, and the first stirrings of the digital age. Color film had become cheap and ubiquitous, so the decade survives in vivid Kodachrome hues.

History is usually written down long after it happens, but a photograph is made in the moment itself. That immediacy is what keeps images like this one circulating decades after the event they show.