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First Solar Eclipse Recorded From Moon
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Feb 26, 2009 03:02 PM
from the that-we-know-of dept.
from the that-we-know-of dept.
dazza101 writes "For the first time ever, we have witnessed a solar eclipse from the moon. On 10 February 2009 Japan's Kaguya lunar orbiter captured the sight of the Earth eclipsing the sun. The spacecraft also recorded this video showing the Earth surrounded by a glowing ring and briefly forming the classic diamond ring that often occurs during a solar eclipse, as seen from down here on Earth."
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Japan Launches Lunar Orbiter Mission 121 comments
Sooner Boomer writes "In a historic event, Japan today launched its first lunar probe. The mission is nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess from Japanese myth. The news media is calling it the 'latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States' to explore the moon (don't forget Google). From the article: 'The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter took off into blue skies, leaving a huge trail of vapor over the tiny island of Tanegashima, about 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo, at 10:31 a.m. (9:31 p.m. EDT) as it headed out over the Pacific Ocean. The mission consists of a main orbiter and two baby satellites equipped with 14 observation instruments designed to examine surface terrain, gravity and other features for clues on the origin and evolution of the moon. China has plans to launch an orbiter later this year, with unmanned rover lander mission scheduled for 2010. India and the US also have orbiter missions scheduled for next year.'"
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even better (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Except the image that at least I'm seeing looks like it was taken with a camera phone taped to the side of the lunar lander. Either that or eclipses on the moon look very pixelated.
(I'm guessing they actually have higher quality photos, just thought it was a bit funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's even better than a solar eclipse as seen from earth because the earth's atmosphere diffracts light from the sun, causing a ring of light to appear around the planet. Very cool.
The moon's craters and mountains cause the same effect in lunar solar eclipses, no?
Re:even better (Score:5, Informative)
By comparison, on the moon the Earth is approximately three times the angular size of the Sun, so the illumination of the rim only occurs because of atmospheric diffraction. This diffraction of sunlight is also responsible for the reddish light one sees during a lunar eclipse.
Parent
Re:even better (Score:5, Insightful)
And while I was doing all that, someone took a few amazing photos. Kudos to them!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
..I might have beer right here at work.
Blimey. Eclipse or no eclipse, where I work, that's grounds for dismissal.
Are you folks hiring?
cheers,
Re:even better (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Hoax? (Score:2)
Why the hoax tag? There is no moon? Or have the tinfoil nutjobs awaken earlier today?
Re:Hoax? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hoax? (Score:5, Funny)
... it's the earth.
Parent
Re:Hoax? (Score:5, Funny)
No; it's a picture the sun, actually. I don't get the big deal about this stupid picture; there's a whole fuckin planet in the way!
Parent
Re:Hoax? (Score:5, Funny)
I know what you mean. Earth blocking sun? Happens every night to me.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Its either because some people still think we didn't land on the moon, some people were making fun of people who think we didn't land on the moon, or someone thinks that the images are photoshopped. Or just stills from "The Ring."
My god... my phone just rang...
Re: (Score:2)
Why the hoax tag? There is no moon? Or have the tinfoil nutjobs awaken earlier today?
Of course there is a moon... it's just that there isn't an earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, there is no moon.
The moon is a ridiculous liberal myth [slashdot.org].
Re:Hoax? (Score:4, Funny)
The hoax tag is for irony. This Japanese trip to the moon is real, in contrast to the 1969 USian trip that was faked.
Parent
In related news (Score:5, Funny)
The RIAA, on behalf of it's client Universal Media Studios, has issued a DMCA take down notice for the lunar orbiter's obvious infringement of the copyright of the opening credits to the television drama series Hereos.
Re:In related news (Score:5, Insightful)
New Godwin rule: all /. discussions inevitably end in the mention of DRM or the RIAA.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Not just internet discussions...
I would almost bet that you could find any newsprint from the WW2 era and replace Nazi with RIAA/MPAA, bomber/tank/troops with DRM and Jews with "hackers" and it would sort of make sense.
"Medium's Appeal Ends
"The hearing of the appeal of Mrs. Helen Duncan, the medium, against her conviction and sentence of nine months' imprisonment under the Witchcraft Act, 1785, concluded in the Court of Appeal yesterday.
"Judgement will be given Monday week."
Nope, I made all the replacements you asked and it doesn't make any sense at all.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Please don't correct him; Universal Media Studios has copyrighted the original word.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh. I thought it was some kind of heroes-related Oreo. You know, like one side is Tracy, Daphne on the other, and I'm the stuffing!
Okay I didn't think that's what he meant, I was thinking about the hero-sammich anyway.
"Pudenda"?! 'scuse me? (Score:3, Funny)
FTFA: "A pudendal lunar eclipse is a phenomenon in which the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in tandem, hence the Moon is in the Earth's pudenda, or, when you look from the Moon, the Sun is partially covered by the Earth (partial eclipse.) During this phenomenon, the volume of sunlight to the Moon decreases, and the Moon's surface looks darker when you look at the Moon from the Earth. The KAGUYA, which circles around the Moon on its polar orbit, can witness this phenomenon only twice a year at most, thus it was very valuable to capture the moving images of the phenomenon from the KAGUYA."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And shortly after passing the pudenda, the Moon was then in the Earth's taint. The KAGUYA's cameras were turned off in order to avoid seeing what happened after that...
(C)JAXA/NHK (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(C)JAXA/NHK (Score:5, Insightful)
He's basically saying, in Japanese, that this picture was sponsored by JAXA (the Japanese space agency) and NHK (a Japanese television station). It's a joke.
shashin = picture
suponsaa = sponser
okurishimasu = i'll send you, i'll forward to you
This is the Japanese version of "brought to you by $SPONSORS" that any anime or Japanese television fan would recognize as they say it after the credits of nearly every show.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This is the Japanese version of "brought to you by $SPONSORS" that any anime or Japanese television fan would recognize as they say it after the credits of nearly every show.
Assuming they're watching it in japan. I'm pretty sure when they bring shows over here they don't keep the ads. Which is a shame given that they're much wierder than the ones that we have over here.
Fansubs (Score:2, Funny)
Fansubbers often leave them in. Not the advertising block of course, but the ad from the sponsor, which usually consists of a single image, overlaid on which the names or logos of the sponsors, to a background of the theme music of the series, while a usually female voice says something along the lines of what OP said. Or so I'm told.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, well then assuming either they watch it in japan, or get the fansubs and happen to speak japanese, because to a non-japanese speaker that's just going to sound like "blahblahblahblah." Speaking from experience, I do watch fansubs and only started remembering what they said when I started taking japanese.
Another finding: the excuse for not doing your japanese homework "I'll just learn it by watching a lot of anime" is a whole lot more fun but absolutely does not work, at least for some people (sample
Terran Eclipse? (Score:5, Informative)
During a total solar eclipse (from the Earth's perspective), the ring of light around the moon is from the sun's photosphere showing around the edges of the moon.
The ring around the earth in the solar eclipse (from the Moon's perspective) is from the light refracting from the atmosphere. I'd think the Earth's relative size would be far too large for an effect like Baily's Beads to be seen from the moon.
Or am I missing something?
Re:Terran Eclipse? (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct. The Moon's angular size is close enough to the Sun's that some eclipses are annular (the Moon is too far away to cover the Sun). Even during a total eclipse, you can see the bright inner corona (not the photosphere - that's what makes it total).
For lunar eclipses, the Earth will generally completely cover the Sun, inner corona and all. However, refraction through the Earth's atmosphere lights up the Lunar landscape, (i.e., the light of every Sun rise and Sun set going on everywhere on Earth). This light - the depth of the eclipse - has been used to infer global atmospheric conditions over historical time [colorado.edu].
Parent
Wonderful (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That would have been nasty. Sunlight unfiltered by the earth's atmosphere? You saw the way the light bloomed in the video. That would have made a mess of an astronaut's eyes. Well, and their face. :)
(ya, ya, I know they have filtered shields on their helmets)
And, we don't have the technology to dump that data back, so it would just have been his (or her) word "Oh, that was beautiful"
Now, if they had done it with a better camera, I would have been more
Re: (Score:2)
How do you figure that we humans are better off, collectively, that a dozen of us have walked on the moon?
Now, before the flame fest begins, let me say that I do indeed agree that the space program has brought to mankind tremendous benefits in terms of knowledge and technology and on and on. That's not what I'm saying.
Apart from the political statement, what was achieved by sending a human to the moon that we could not have achieved some other way?
Neil Armstrong himself, is much better off. But there are mo
Pitch Dark (Score:2)
You were just eaten by a Grue.
Also populated by space marines.
Apollo 12 saw this first (Score:3, Informative)
Apollo 12 went through a solar eclipse [nasa.gov] on the way back from the Moon, shortly after leaving Lunar Orbit.
Conspiracies-R-Us... (Score:5, Funny)
Apollo 12 went through a solar eclipse [nasa.gov] on the way back from the Moon, shortly after leaving Lunar Orbit.
Yeah, and we almost had it on video too, until some moron opened the emergency exit door on the lunar studio and ruined the whole shoot...
Parent
POV changes, name doesn't. (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't a solar eclipse, this is a lunar eclipse.
That's what it's called when the earth blocks the sunlight hitting the moon, which is what happened here.
A solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the sunlight hitting the earth. (And would appear, from the moon, as a dark spot moving across the face of the earth.)
Viewing it from the other place doesn't change the name of it. The names are not relative, they're legacy names that don't mean anything. (Otherwise a solar eclipse would be called an 'earth ecl
Re:POV changes, name doesn't. (Score:5, Informative)
This is a solar eclipse because the Sun is being obscured. In a lunar eclipse the Moon is being obscured. If you're on the moon there are no lunar eclipses.
If things always have the same name regardless of where they are viewed, why can't I get to my home coputer by typing "localhost"?
Parent
Nice shot of the Big Dipper (Score:3, Funny)
Oh wait, maybe that was dust on my monitor.
Obligatory Headline Quibble (Score:4, Funny)
First Solar Eclipse Recorded From Moon
But wasn't the first solar eclipse a really long time ago?
Save Versus Dork At -5. (Score:2)
4
FAIL.
This is amazingly cool footage. Hopefully they'll put the entire thing up.
You haven't seen this before?- NASA's Blue Marble (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone else think that the ship should have been called Bishoujou Senshi Sera Moon? It is a Japanese spacecraft in lunar orbit, after all.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's already named after a legendary Moon princess. [wikipedia.org] That story slightly predates Sailor Moon.
BTW, if you're tempted to "Whoosh" because you were joking and thought your joke went over my head, don't. It didn't go over; it clunked into the ground well short of "humorous".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...who watched the video and suddenly had a flashback of the POV-Ray rendering window? (the first half of the video, that is)