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posted by janrinok on Friday August 07 2015, @09:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the say-Pink-Floyd dept.

We can't see the far side of the moon from Earth because the two bodies are tidally locked. NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory has captured a series of pictures as the moon passed in front of the sunlit side of Earth and will keep doing so about twice a year:

The images, taken on 16 July, show the moon moving across the Pacific Ocean towards North America. Its far side is shown in detail owing to sunlight hitting it, revealing a crater and a large plain called the Mare Moscoviense.

[...] Associate Professor Michael Brown, an astronomer at Monash University, said the images of the far side of the moon were "captivating".

"It's unusual because you need a spacecraft that has gone beyond the moon to get a picture of the moon like this," he said. "This was taken around one million miles from Earth. We don't normally get that perspective."


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday August 08 2015, @12:16AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Saturday August 08 2015, @12:16AM (#219725) Homepage

    We can't see the far side of the moon from Earth because the two bodies are tidally locked.

    Nope. The moon is tidally locked to the Earth, but not vice versa.

    Also while these images are very cool, it's not like we've never had a good look at the far side - in higher resolution, too.

    What's really awesome about these images is seeing both the Earth and moon is the same shot, and the animation. No live stream though? ;)

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
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    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:20AM (#219771)

    What's really awesome about these images is seeing both the Earth and moon is the same shot

    You know, as a kid, I encountered the moon's albedo (listed as 0.15 in the book I was reading, IIRC, though wikipedia says 0.136), and was flabbergasted -- it couldn't possibly be that dingy, it looks white in the sky most nights! Of course I've intellectually understood the resolution of that apparent contradiction* for many years now, but it's still amazing to see an image that makes it delightfully and viscerally clear by juxtaposing the moon with a familiar in-frame reference.

      * It's simple, of course -- the moon, dingy though it be, is the brightest object in the sky, so your eyes adjust their exposure settings to it; if the moon were 5 times as bright, it would appear much the same, and the stars would appear dimmer.