The Moon

[Cephalopod]

The extraordinary face of the Moon (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/22/the-extraordinary-face-of-the-moon/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+BadAstronomyBlog+(Bad+Astronomy ))

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2011/02/lroc_nearside.jpg



Sure, that may just look like another full Moon picture, but it’s much more extraordinary than that: it’s one of the highest resolution pictures of the entire near side of the Moon ever compiled!

This is actually a mosaic of about 1300 separate images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Wide-Angle Camera — the total size is a whopping 24,000 x 24,000 pixels, producing a resolution of about 145 meters/pixel. The full-size version (http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/wac_nearside.tif) is a monster 550 Mb TIF file (seriously, don’t grab that one unless you need it!), and you can get a more palatable 1400 x 1400 pixel version with labels (http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/lroc_wac_nearside_noslew_anot.png), too.

The images were taken over the course of two weeks in December 2010. LRO is in a polar orbit around the Moon — think of it as moving in a north/south direction over the surface instead of east/west. Over time, as the Moon rotates underneath it, LRO can see the entire surface of the Moon. As it does this, the angle of sunlight changes, so care had to be taken when creating this mosaic to make it appear seamless; otherwise shadows would appear to jump suddenly from point to point. If you look carefully you’ll see where shadows point in different directions, but it still looks pretty natural.


The zoomable version (http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/wac_nearside) literally gives me a thrill in my pants.

Enjoy.

[Warriorbird]

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/94231.gif

[Swami71]

Very Cool

Wonder if you can see the US flag. They left that there right?

[Back]

Judging from the craters... the Earth land mass should be free of meteoroid strikes fairly frequently.

[ZeP]

care had to be taken when creating this mosaic to make it appear seamless; otherwise shadows would appear to jump suddenly from point to point. If you look carefully you’ll see where shadows point in different directions, but it still looks pretty natural.


What are they hiding!!!oneonetwo

[Latrinsorm]

Good post.
Very Cool

Wonder if you can see the US flag. They left that there right?145 meters a pixel, nope.
What are they hiding!!!oneonetwoSomeone carved DA MOON RULES, #1 with a freakin' key.

[WRoss]

The zoomable picture is cool. First area I zoomed into I saw a cross and was like WTF, then zoomed back out a little bit and realized it must have been where they had a rover because there are a lot of right angles. Either that or there is a limestone like sedimentary erosion you'd expect from water, but there is no there.

[Fallen]

Someone carved DA MOON RULES, #1 with a freakin' key.

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/2256/959298-vlcsnap_1889074_large.png

[WRoss]

Judging from the craters... the Earth land mass should be free of meteoroid strikes fairly frequently.

There is this cool thing that is the atmosphere. A long time ago, it formed, and weather was created. This probably day or two or three if you are a devout Christian, but about day 1.46x10^12 if you believe science. Anyways, this weather had a really cool effect, it weathered shit. I know, it's hard to understand as I'm using an adjective to describe a verb I just used, but basically, it moved sediments, eroded rocks, and provided sustenance for living organisms to form. Some of these living things were plants, which provided strong root structures for those sediments to clump together. This also provide mineralization and decay layers which eventually formed different rock formations! Other organisms did this by eating and shitting plants all over the fucking place. This was probably about day 5 or even 6 if you are a Christian, but about day 2.0x10^12. But anyways, the moon doesn't have this thing called water, and never formed an atmosphere, and never had weathering, and never had plants and animals to shit and decompose and form rock. Fucking bitch ass moon.

[Swami71]

145 meters a pixel, nope.

Damn

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Lunar_libration_with_phase_Oct_2007_450px.gif/220px-Lunar_libration_with_phase_Oct_2007_450px.gif

[WRoss]

Anyone confirm/deny that this is where there was a rover or a landing?

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy356/wross_photo/moon.png

[ZeP]

Aristarchus/Herodotus craters? The screenshot seems fucked up. I don't think there was a landing there.

[WRoss]

Whats up with all those right angles? When you zoom in closer, the straight looking lines are actually made of small zigzags that appear to be close to right angles. Just seems odd that something would form like that naturally.

[ZeP]

Rilles, I guess, according to search results. I didn't see any 100% verified explanation although that is understandable. Common theories fault lines for the straight ones.

[Gan]

Very Cool

Wonder if you can see the US flag. They left that there right?

No silly, that's on Mars.

(Points if you get the political reference.)

[WRoss]

No silly, that's on Mars.

(Points if you get the political reference.)

Sorry Mrs. Jackson....

[Gan]

Sorry Mrs. Jackson....

I am for real
Never meant to make your daughter cry
I apologize a trillion times...

You are correct sir!

Congresssswooooomaaaaann! Sheila Jackson Lee

[Cephalopod]

Anyone confirm/deny that this is where there was a rover or a landing?

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy356/wross_photo/moon.png

I'm not entirely sure what you screencapped there (and you should've waited for the rest of the pic to resolve). You can see all the lunar landings on Google's moon site (which isn't as high-quality as this, obviously):

google.com/moon (http://www.google.com/moon/)

A good way to orient yourself is that Apollo 11 on the Google map is in the south of the Sea of Tranquility. Use the LROC map with labels (http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/lroc_wac_nearside_noslew_anot.png) to find Mare Tranquillitatis on the scrollable version.

As was already pointed out, you really can't see the lunar landing sites due to the resolution -- you can probably make out West crater (although not Little West), though.

To add to this (and to highlight the enormity of what you're actually looking at), here is the Cat's Paw crater in relation to the West crater:
http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_Apollo_11_Area_LO-V-076M_LTVT.JPG

Then here is the West crater, zoomed in (you can now see Little West):
http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_Apollo_11_Site_LO-V-076H_LTVT.JPG

The West crater is about 185m in diameter, making it just possible to spot it on full map. (I haven't found it, but I'm sure someone will label it soon.)

The landing site is about 60 meters west of 33m-diameter Little West Crater.

Using this map from the LRO in 2009, you can see the orientation of the landing site relative to West crater:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/400201main1_lroc_apollo11_20091109_540.jpg