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An Epic View of the Moon In Earth's Orbital Embrace
astroengine writes: As a suitably impressive follow-up to the new "blue marble" image of our world released in July, NASA shared a gorgeous animation created from pictures captured by NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft positioned nearly a million miles (1.5 million km) away — over four times farther than the moon. In a series of images acquired between 3:50 and 8:45 p.m. EDT on July 16, 2015, the moon can be seen passing in front of a rotating Earth, the warm gray face of its far side framed by the swirling-cloud-covered blue water of the eastern Pacific Ocean. The north pole is at the 11 o'clock position, illustrating our planet's 23.5-degree axial tilt.
Truly beautiful.
That is all.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"That's no moon"
sig: sauer
They made up all that math. The Earth is flat, see "Zetetic Astronomy": http://www.sacred-texts.com/ea...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I second that emotion.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I'd hesitate to call that person a "researcher". Those rolling distortions he filmed are pretty easily explained as some sort of atmospheric distortion - the very simplest possible explanation. Call me when we see a video of the moon with rippling distortions while filmed from orbit.
I think the reason this particular NASA image looks "fake" is because we have no frame of reference for it. We almost never see the back side of the moon, nor are used to seeing it crossing in front of the Earth. Moreover, the way it's badly compressed into an animated gif makes it look even sketchier. Seriously, it's 2015. Do we not have anything better than gifs for animating small clips like this?
What's funny is that I tend to believe it's real almost *because* it looks sort of hokey. It would be pretty easy to make a much more convincing CG animation that would look much more "realistic".
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's the far side of the Moon. Unless you launch some kind of huge mirror, we are not going to be able to see it directly from Earth.
And had we not spent the money, the same people would still be literally starving to death.
The youtube version shows a lot more color: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMdhQsHbWTs
Unfortunately, because of the way the images were taken, with separate exposures for the red green and blue colors, the moon is slightly blurred and has a color fringe around it. This is further compounded by the extremely flat light, rendering the moon in the image rather featureless.
What I found most interesting about this image is that it really shows how dark the moon is. It's something to think about when looking at the seemingly stark light of the full moon. Imagine how bright it would be if it was snow white.
show us your assumptions and calculations, please.
The moon is not a giant hologram projected by alien technology.[1]
[1] common fucking sense.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
“It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon,” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”
The Moon has an albedo of about 0.1 (similar to coal), while Earth's albedo is three times greater, so this isn't really very surprising at all.
What I found most interesting about this image is that it really shows how dark the moon is. It's something to think about when looking at the seemingly stark light of the full moon. Imagine how bright it would be if it was snow white.
It doesn't look that dark to me; it looks about the same brightness as the land on Earth. I guess it's Earth that's rather bright because of all the H2O being quite reflective.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Article on NASA site: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86353&src=iotdrss
I've taken some fantastic full moon photos. Manual mode, shutter at 1/160, aperture f16, ISO 100 (or just play with it to get the best shot for your camera). You can also adjust the aperture to suit the shot you like.
You need a shutter speed at least 1/160 because the moon is actually moving. Bumping up the ISO + a faster shutter can work, too, but I like to keep it simple.
You make a very good point.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Due to the libration of the Moon, about 9% of the far side is visible. If you look at map, you can see it is enough to see some areas characteristic of the far side, although at not very great viewing angles.
Also took some fantastic full moon selfies, sent them to the mayor, ended up in the bin, again.
What is wrong with you losers -- These photos are supposed to have been taken by GoreSat 1.
And Al Gore is fat.
That is all you need to know.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The "whitey is not on the moon, he's just taking photos" argument.
P.S. This is GoreSat 1, the Republicans have spent decades trying to avoid it being launched.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Easier and more fun to hack ATM machines with some acetelyne.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Easy: you're a heritic for questioning well established scientific principals. Plase report to the town square to be tarred and feathered. (Also, plase bring some tar and some feathers).
Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I agree. The entire image is only about four times the Moon's diameter wide, which means (if my calculations are correct, bwa ha ha!) the Moon only travels through about 1-1.5 degrees of arc during the video (which is why DSCOVR could shoot it in only 5 hours). The effective pull of the Moon on the Earth is pretty much straight toward the observer the whole time.
But there are no real depth cues, so it's hard to judge that the two bodies are nearly a quarter-million miles apart.
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
I know, right! It doesn't look a day over 4000 if you ask me...
*sighs* I never *really* know what to expect. Poe? I think not. Maybe...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hey now... What's love got to do with it?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
My school, a private boarding school named Kent's Hill, was given a moon rock and it was in a special cabinet but we handled it in Geology. They came, later, and stole the rock back - said it was not allowed or something. I have no idea why. My understanding is that they then gave the school a tree. I am not sure how the tree was to replace the rock that they stole but, well, something about treaties and bad form? I really do not understand it, at all. They brought bag bags full of rocks and the school already had the rock - it was given. It was seemingly not lawfully given, again some treaty or something, and they took it back and gave them a tree. I do not know of any trees on the moon. I think there was a plaque with the tree but I think the plaque is no more. The plaque is on the quad near the student center and chow hall.
As an aside and some pretty obvious shilling...
For any parents who would like to send their children, and this is blatantly shilling but bear with me, then there are a number of scholarships available at Kent's Hill. It is a nice school with its own observatory, ice arena, alpine ski slope, and a very modern computer science laboratory. One of the scholarships is specifically for technical merit and is trivial to apply for. Said scholarship covers all tuition, room and board, and a stipend. Tuition includes all class and lab material. There is a certain amount of glee that would be had if a Slashdotter had a child take advantage of said scholarship - it is in a handy trust and will, ideally, survive forever and only increase over time. So, if someone applies for a scholarship at KH and is approved they should let me know.
They are an excellent educational facility with lots of contacts across the globe. You would do well to send your children there and they have a very open policy about allowing alma mater to return to speak and allowing parents to visit and observe. Parents who are unable to afford such are often invited to stay in the Dean's House while they are there to observe their children or if there is some crisis that brings them there to their children. They have an adequate sports complex, more than adequate, but the emphasis is still on prep for further education as well as communication with others in that same environment. In other words, "They will teach your children how to talk like a fag and interact with educated people - not just to be educated." The food has electrolytes.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What was obviously humor was taken serious and they thought you were trolling? Hmm... Maybe they have not seen your other comments? I thought it funny. I might have smoked a wee bit of weed but, still, I thought it was funny. Then again, the comments that are joking about the moon-landing being faked (obviously jokes) are modded down as well. Maybe it is a ritual that I do not understand.
I have seen this sort of things in other, past articles, where obvious humor was assumed to be a troll or flamebait or whatnot. No, I do not know why. Maybe it is some sort of Poe's law variation or something? I have noticed that the "/s" (sarcastic indicator) seems to help with the confusion when I have seen it used. *shrugs* I do not moderate, as a general rule, so it is not something I really understand.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You really can not prove anything, at all, exists with mathematics. You can only infer that your measuring is accurate. In other words, you can not prove that you are real - all you can prove is that you can measure it and observe it. You can not even be certain that you're measuring it in any valuable method. Math does not really prove anything other than the chance of something being true within an applied framework. It is really a matter of probabilities and certainly not proof - only that it can be shown to be consistent. At best you can only prove that our current understanding is correct. Applied Mathematics is a thing, for a reason.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You forgot the most imperative of questions my good sir or madam... "Y'ear me?" It seems silly to ask it so frequently. It is usually at loud volumes so, really, unless the indications are that one can not, in fact, hear them then they should, by all means, not need to inquire about it as loudly and frequently.
I say this, as a mixed race and being a partially black person, "Cut that shit out." You're not a Verizon commercial. We have many, many dialects of English in this country - including Ebonics. None of them require such an inquiry and it really is a silly question. Body language, alone, should be the indicator that your audience can not hear you. At best the question is pertinent just once or twice.
I am fluent in a number of regional Ebonics dialects (my inflection is off as I am not a native) and, really, I can generally tell if the person I am speaking to has a hearing disability. They will usually make it a point to let you know, actually. They will even let you know if they do not speak the language. Note: If they do not speak the language then, honestly, speaking it louder is unlikely to help.
But, enough about me...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Do we not have anything better than gifs for animating small clips like this?
Webm. Its amazing and I'm shocked that so many people haven't caught the new wave yet.
Liquid H2O has a few percent reflectivity, not that different to the Moon's basalt (more-or-less basalt, some anorthosite too). What makes the difference is the presence of floating aerosols of droplets of liquid H2O in the atmosphere of the Earth, which has a reflectivity up in the 60s and higher of percent.
Phase matters. (And in this case, changing phase involves a lot of latent heat moving in either direction.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"