Check out this amazing movie of the Earth rising over the Moon shot by the Japanese Kaguya orbiter.
JAXA PRESS RELEASE
9 October 2008
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) successfully captured a movie of the “Full Earth-Rise” using the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) of the lunar explorer “KAGUYA” (SELENE) on September 30, 2008 (Japan Standard Time, JST, all the following dates and time are JST.) The KAGUYA is currently flying in a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km.
Continue reading ‘Kaguya Captures Earth Rise in HDTV’
JAXA has published some really cool images of the lunar surface produced by its Kaguya (Selene) orbiter. These include:
- Topographical map of the moon 10 times more accurate than any previous one.
- “Full Earth-rise” without any wane. This is the first time that a high-definition image of the full Earth has been captured from space.
- Images of the Apollo 11 landing site on Mare Tranquillitatis.
Belated congratulations are also in order: the Kaguya mission team was honored with a Laureate Award by Aviation Week & Space Technology last month. This is the first Japanese mission to be honored in such a way.
The BBC has a great story about the HDTV footage sent back from lunar orbit by the Japanese Selene (Kaguya) spacecraft. The story features links to three spectacular videos that were unveiled this week at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston.
