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The Zooites working at the Moon Zoo citizen science project have uncovered some very unique oblique views of the Moon taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Occasionally, LRO takes “sideways glances” at the Moon instead of looking straight down like the spacecraft normally does. The Moon doesn’t really look like this close up, because these images aren’t scaled correctly (the width and height pixel scales are different by five times, the Zooites say in the Moon Zoo Forum), but they provide a distinctive look at the lunar surface, and things like craters on the side of a hill, — or perhaps an entrance to a cave — show up better than in normal images. Have fun looking at some more of these images below, or on the Moon Zoo Forum.
And don’t forget, if you aren’t working on at least one of the Zooniverse citizen science projects, you are missing out on mountains of fun!
I almost expected to see the rest of the LEM sticking out of the ground….. Nice views, btw. They really give a sense of 3D….
These are fantastic. It’s hard to convince yourself that they’re real!!
Every time I look at the surface of the moon, I can’t believe any of the above ground settlement ideas we come up with would be reliable. Look at all those asteroid strikes. Unless it was something with extremely steep deflection angles, underground seems like the way to go.
I do agree that underground is the way to go, but mainly because of the radiation and temperature concerns, remember it has taken about 4 billion years for the moon to accumulate all those craters! And the majority of the surface looks untouched. Well, it certainly makes a beautiful moonscape!
wow! unbelievable! after decades and centuries of technology, at last, they now know how to look sideways… hahaha.
Fantastic images, what I wouldn’t give for similar shots of Titan, Enceladus, and Europa. Thanks Nancy!
“wow! unbelievable! after decades and centuries of technology, at last, they now know how to look sideways”
It’s not all *that* new. Consider this classic oblique image from Lunar Orbiter 2 in November of 1966, then hailed as ‘The Picture of the Century:’
http://www.moonviews.com/archives/2009/03/newly_restored_picture_of_the.html
Right on! Thanks for digging that up; I’m not a lover of all things old, but history of technology can be fascinating.
As I’m old enough to remember it first-hand (I was 12), I’ll try not to be too offended…! 🙂
Oops, ouch, erhm… Good! It’s all in the perspective.
[In chip years, that is something like 30 generations. I don’t think space technology has aged _that_ fast though.]