Lunar landscape, 1872 artwork. This artwork is by the French artist Le Breton, with a German caption across bottom. The mapping of the Moon with telescopes started with Galileo in 1610, and then developed further during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as telescopes improved. It was not until the launch of lunar probes and the manned missions to the Moon in the 1960s, that an accurate depiction of the surface of the Moon was possible. Unlike the Earth, the Moon is an airless, barren world of cratered and jagged rocks, little to no erosion, and with extremes of day and night temperatures, harsh sunlight and deep shadows.