Magnificent Moon mountain sunrise caught on camera
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured a magnificent view (big version here) of sunrise over mountains in the centre of the Moon's Tycho crater: Sunrise over the Tycho crater's central mountains. Pic: NASA NASA explains: "A very popular target with amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.37°S, 348.68°E, …
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Somewhat better images
than with my 8" scope.
Brilliant stuff.
Elementary, my dear Watson
The Greenwich Meridian must naturally run through New London ...
Don't they teach geography in schools anymore?
Ephemeral
Doesn't stuff like this ("being a mere 110 million years old") make you feel ever-so-ever-so small sometimes?! In a good, humbling way, that is...
Re: Ephemeral
> Doesn't stuff like this ("being a mere 110 million years old") make you feel
> ever-so-ever-so small sometimes?
Don't go anywhere enar small pieces of fairy cake if it does...
Vic.
[I seem to be having a HitchHiker day today...]
re: ephemeral
I can remember watching the Apollo expedition TV feeds as a young teenager and seeing all the magnificent stuff being discovered -- like the famous orange dirt on Apollo 17 -- and found myself sharing the astronauts' sense of wonder as they all commented on how it seemed that all this awesome stuff had been lying there for millions of years just waiting for us to find it.
Probably get flamed for this...
But they look much more realistic than the rounded fake ones from the alleged moon landing.
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Moon-Landing.jpg
Are you sure it's that old??
Surely the Creationists might have an issue with you saying it's that old. Do you have any proof? Surely the magic sky fairy made it, single-handedly, a bit more recently than that??
Mine's the one with the 'atheist' badge on the back.....
What makes you think
He can't make something pre-aged, you know like faded/ripped jeans?
Monochrome
My first reaction was why weren't they using a colour camera? But then I realised the moon is very grey. Extremely grey - I opened the image in gimp, whacked up the saturation and it looked just as grey.
Or maybe they weren't using a colour camera?
re: monochrome
I suspect LRO is shooting in grayscale.
Check out some of the orbital and surface photography from the Apollo missions; depending on the lighting and the viewing angle, the color of the Moon varies from the usual slate gray to a warm charcoal gray to a pale chocolate brown.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo8/hires/as08-14-2383.jpg
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo10/hires/as10-27-3890.jpg
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/AS17-134-20435.jpg
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/AS17-137-20990.jpg
Impact dynamics?
Any geodynamics folk out there who can explain how the central peak is formed from an impact event?
I had always presumed that the central peak was caused by a form of induced elastic compression and rebound generated by the tremendous forces in play, but the relevant Wikipedia article says otherwise:
-- -- Wikipedia: Complex crater
-- -- -- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_crater
and indicates the center cone (or cone ring, for very large impacts) are created by "a process in which a material with little or no strength attempts to return to a state of gravitational equilibrium."
Anyone care to elaborate?
Well I'm not a Geodynamicist but...
I would assume the peak is what's left of whatever lump of rock impacted and caused the crater? It is only 110 million years old after all and hasn't had chance to be worn down yet.
Doh!
"Any geodynamics folk out there who can explain how the central peak is formed from an impact event?"
Tut! Tut! Everybody know that the aliens that started intelligent life on earth left it that way after they buried the monolith, aka TMA-1, there.
Paris, "The thing's hollow - it goes on forever – and - oh my God* - it's full of stars!"
* whatever one you want
re: what caused the peak
I'm not a geodynamicist either, but two questions asked at the LRO blog at http://tinyurl.com/6kdavlc are:
"Were these distinctive outcrops formed as a result of crushing and deformation of the target rock as the peak grew? Or do they represent preexisting rock layers that were brought intact to the surface...?"
I also seem to recall a theory involving volcanic activity caused by a rupturing of the crust in which the crust rebounds from the impact and causes a "backsplash" of lava which hardens in place, but the LRO blog doesn't mention it.
Still in all, it's frickin' gorgeous.
Moon facts
There is no dark side of the moon, really. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
The only thing that makes it look light is the sun.
re: moon facts
Actually, Pink Floyd were at least partially right about there being no "dark side". The term "dark side" is actually a misnomer; the proper term, as taught to me by the Apollo crewmen, was "far side" -- that is, the side that's always turned away from Earth as it's "tidally locked" in position in its orbit, even though the Moon has a rotational cycle. The far side receives sunlight on a regular basis, but we just don't see it because it's always facing away from us, so the Moon isn't really "all dark".
Sorry, Mr. Floyd.
That's "far side", not "dark side"...
As seen by the LRO:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/527006main_farside.1600.jpg
Re: "far side"
...is the *wrong* answer, but thanks for playing.
Join us next time, won't you, here on the El Reg Pink Floyd lyrics quiz!
made of awesome!
Among my shit-ton(ne) of space-related bookmarks is the LRO site, which I check regularly. I first saw these images there a couple of days ago and damn' near crapped my drawers at their sheer awesomeness. Yesterday, I saw they were picked up by the Bad Astronomy blog, where Phil Plait was in a similar state of pants-crapping delight. I especially enjoyed the close-up of the main central peak, and the small depression where a boulder was resting. I'd never seen the Tycho peaks in such detail and in a view such as the oblique sunrise view, and it totally knocked my lights out.
No goddamn' wonder these are being blasted all over the place. They're made of awesome.
There used to be a comic strip called 'The Far Side'
It was good, but not as good as those pix.
You missed a bit...
... According to NASA the mountain in the centre of the crater is a piece off the meteorite that struck the earth and killed off the dinosaurs.
Kiwi Guy
The same detailed image but in all its 3D glory plus a brilliant 3D flyover video is available on Google Moon - fire up Google Earth, select Moon and search for Tycho. Damn I love Google Earth.
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