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Apollo 17 astronauts returned to earth 47 years ago today. These photos tell the story of the last manned lunar landing.

Dec 19, 2019, 23:02 IST

Ronald Evans, pictured here with his wife Jan Pollom, was Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 17 Lunar Landing Mission, which took off from Cape Kennedy in Florida on December 7.

Dr. Schmitt was the lunar module pilot.

Harrison Schmitt, Ronald Evans, and Eugene Cernan prepared to go into space.

The command module orbited the moon.

Once on the moon, astronauts collected lunar samples...

...like this 3.5 billion year old rock, sometimes called "The Goodwill Sample." Samples from it were gifted to every country on earth.

The Evans family watched two of the astronauts explore the moon on TV, while Ronald Evans orbited the moon in the command module.

Cernan drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle around the landing site.

The astronauts took a photo of earth from the spacecraft.

According to NASA, astronauts spent 75 hours on the moon's surface during the mission.

The Evans family and others waited for news of a safe landing.

The command module landed back on earth in the Pacific Ocean on December 19, 1972.

The family and supporters cheered as they watched the landing on TV.

On December 21, Evans was reunited with his wife and two children in Houston.

We're likely to find alien life in the next decade, scientists say. Here's where NASA plans to look - in our solar system and beyond.