Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Moon in the round - and round, and round . . .


NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been looping around and around the Moon since 2009.  Now the agency has released this video loop, compiled from who knows how many individual photographs, showing the entire surface of the Moon, including the 'dark side' previously seen only by astronauts.  As Geekquinox explains:

The moon really does rotate, even though it doesn't look like it from here. Because the moon is 'tidally locked' to the Earth, that means that it always has one face pointed towards us. However, it also means that the time it takes to rotate once is the same as the time it takes to go around the Earth — 27 days.

There's more at the link.  Here's the video.  I highly recommend watching it in full-screen mode.





I can remember the Moon landings very clearly.  I'd expected there to be colonies on the Moon by now, perhaps even a tourist resort or two.  I guess we dropped the ball on that one . . . but not to worry.  China plans to have its astronauts on the moon within a year or two.

Peter

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you look at the. timeline for European colonization of the Western Hemisphere, you'll see that it began slowly as transoceanic navigation and sailing practices were developed. Crossing the Atlantic in those early days was like us going to the moon, except that when they arrived, they had air, water, and food. I suspect our manned forays into the solar system will follow a similar pattern.

Secesh said...

That's really impressive, thanks for posting it.

FrankC said...

2nd attempt to comment. Google wants a mobile phone number. Keep wanting.

I find it interesting that the nearside has almost all the marias (lava flood fields, I think) and the far side has only a small one.

HerrBGone said...

After seeing it (even though it's not dark) I may need to go listen to some Pink Floyd.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing this with us!

Will said...

BIG impact craters there.