New Earthrise and Earthset Movies from Kaguya
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Ian reported yesterday on the high definition topographical maps recently released by the Japanese SELENE mission, also known as Kaguya, which will provide exact locations of essential minerals to future lunar explorers. And now, via Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society comes more from Kaguya — movies of an Earthrise and Earthset from the moon. While the movies don't provide much as far as scientific data, they are off the charts as far being aesthetically pleasing and just tremendously magnificent. Emily grabbed individual frames from the longer, but smoother high-definition movies that the Japanese Space Agency JAXA created from the HD Camera on board the moon-orbiting Kaguya to create quick little movies. Above is the Earthrise quick movie.
Here's the quick Earthset movie Emily created. And here's the links to the hi-def versions at JAXA for Earthrise and Earthset.
However, these longer and smoother movies are still only 25% of the full resolution of the movies. JAXA has not been releasing the full resolution Kaguya data on the internet, as they are "saving" the really high-def stuff for commercial and educational purposes.
Emily reported that HD camera on board the Kaguya spacecraft generates too much data for live transmission; instead the video is compressed and stored within the camera system. Then, it takes about 20 minutes to transmit a 1-minute video to Earth. See Emily's post for more info.
Original News Source: The Planetary Society
Related stories on Universe Today
Comment policy: Be nice and brief. Don't advertise your stuff, or promote your personal theories. We'll delete any comments that break these policies. Click here for more details.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:34 am
Why isn't the Earth rotating? Wouldn't an observer on the moon see the Earth turning on its axis as it rises and sets?
April 15th, 2008 at 10:10 am
JAXA could not disclose full resolution of HD camera images because of the camera was developped co-operation with Japan Public Bloadcasting Corporation(NHK). NHK is public organization but she insist Kaguya's video images are half belong to her then rejected request from JAXA to releasing the images. This is too bogus because of NHK is operated by income of Japanese people. But this kind of bureaucratic mannars can be seen all around the country nowaday. As a result of this bureaucratic behavior of NHK, nearly 20% of Japanese rejected to pay fee for NHK although this is kind of obligation as likie a tax. Everything is too stupid.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I was wondering the same, Al.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
"Why isn't the Earth rotating?"
My guess is that the movement of the spacecraft that creates the "Earthrise" and "Earth-set" is moving faster than the rotation of the Earth. Am I close?
April 15th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I think we would see the Earth rotating if the video were a bit longer, can't wait to see the high-def though!
March 11th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Did I miss something? It's the same camera, right? Why is the earth a different size from one video to the other? I guess I should go find the source images and see for myself.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
You didn't miss anything. There are two HDTV cameras with different fields of view, one looking forward, one looking back.