The topography of any surface will create shades, when the sunlight hits it. We can clearly see the shades in the pictures of e.g. the Moon, but we don't know the elevation of the terrain.

The topography of the moon’s surface, which consists mainly of innumerable crater-like circles and arcs varying in size from several hundred miles across to less than is telescopically visible ...

"We need to understand the surface topography of the moon where there isn't as much light, like the shadowed areas of the lunar south pole where NASA's Artemis missions are targeting. "That will ...

An exhaustive examination of lunar gravity using data obtained by two NASA robotic spacecraft is offering new clues about why ...

The new process incorporates lunar topography data from the agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a mission that has been mapping the moon in three dimensions since 2009. Older ways of ...