This is a video “flyover” of the images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, riding along the moon’s terminator between night and day. The shallow angle of sunlight makes for very nice relief of the lunar surface. More on the LRO Mission here. Image/animation: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
Tag: moon
Lunar Landscape
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has opened its eyes and sent back its first images since establishing orbit around the moon on June 23. The image above is from a region called Mare Nubium – “Sea of Clouds” – and is on the Earth-facing side of the moon. “Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is…
Out of the Shadows
A stunning image by Cassini, received today, of Daphnis splashing through the Keeler Gap (as seen in my last post). In this photo the sunlight is coming from the opposite direction though. Saturn’s massive shadow falls upon the rings on the right side of this image. Background stars can be seen through the rings. From…
Dark Side of the Moon
As a matter of fact there IS a dark side of the moon, and it’s NOT all dark. The recently-launched LCROSS orbiter proves it too, in this photo taken during its lunar gravity-assist orbit which will take it around the Earth several times before finally impacting the moon on October 9. This image of the…
Chasing Shadows
This animation, made from raw images received on June 22, brings us on a flight above Saturn’s B and A rings looking down over the 3,000-mile wide Cassini Division, following the elongated shadow of a moon cast upon – and through – the ring material. The different densities of the ring segments are made apparent…
Final Frame
This haunting photo is the last image sent back by Japan’s KAGUYA probe before it crashed into the lunar surface at the end of its mission on June 10, 2009. A tiny sliver of sunlight illuminates the rocky rim of a crater as the probe’s high-definition camera stares into the pitch black lunar shadows below….
Up, Up, and Away!
I don’t know what else to say except that this is pretty much the freakin’ coolest thing I’ve seen in a while. And you know that Lights in the Dark specializes in pretty freakin’ cool things. 😉 At 5:32 PM EST on Thursday, June 18, the Atlas V rocket carrying the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter…
So Long, KAGUYA
…and thanks for all the photos. (And amazing HD vids too!) The final hours of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s moon-mapping KAGUYA orbiter are upon us…on Wednesday, June 10, at 2:30 PM EST (18:30 GMT) the orbiter will end its mission in a controlled – but no less fatal – impact onto the lunar surface….
The Eye of Odysseus
This is Tethys, a 662-mile-wide moon of Saturn captured by Cassini’s cameras in this raw image from May 14. Dominating its face is the huge Odysseus Crater, its rim gleaming in the sunlight. Much of Tethys is estimated to be water ice, due to its density and high albedo (reflectivity). That Tethys was able…
Shepherds Fly
Two of Saturn’s smaller moons pass by Cassini’s wide-angle camera in this animation sequence, made from 60 raw images taken on May 26, 2009. Prometheus enters first, stage right, deforming the ringlets of the F ring with its gravity, and is followed shortly after by Atlas, taking the inside track around the edge of…
Craternator
A large-scale crater rides the terminator between day and night on Dione, a 700-mile-wide moon of Saturn. The moon’s signature “wispy lines” can be seen on the sunlit side. These are long fractures in the moon’s surface, exposed ice-covered cliffs hundreds of feet high. Scientists believe they indicate past tectonic activity, or possibly the…
Eclipsing Mimas
This animation, made from a series of 8 raw images taken by Cassini on May 14, shows Saturn’s moon Mimas being eclipsed by another object…..a neighboring moon, perhaps? It’s not mentioned, but it definitely seems to be something of similar size, and round. Mimas is best characterized by its large-scale Herschel crater in its…
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