1st Video of Moon's Far Side 118
chill writes "A gravity-mapping spacecraft orbiting the moon has beamed home its first video of the lunar far side — a view people on Earth never see. Because the moon is tidally locked with Earth, it only presents one face to the planet's surface (the near side). The side of the moon that faces away from Earth is the far side. Only robotic spacecraft and Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon in the 1960s and 1970s have seen the far side of the moon directly."
Dark Side (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Dark Side (Score:4, Informative)
Just in case you're not joking -- there is no dark side of the moon. At least, no permanent one -- of course, one side is dark at any moment, but it's constantly changing. The moon only presents one side to us earthlings, but all sides to the sun.
Re:Dark Side (Score:4, Funny)
There is no far side of the moon, really... as a matter of fact, it's ALL far.
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True. The proper and clear way to phrase it is: The farther side of the moon as measured in a geocentric coordinate system.
Re:Dark Side (Score:5, Funny)
I just heard the refraction of light as it WHOOSHES through a prism...
Re:Pink Floyd (Score:4, Funny)
Chewie I've got a bad feeling about this.
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There is no moon...
-smacks forehead-
Whoa. Spoon.
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there is no dark side of the moon. At least, no permanent one -- of course, one side is dark at any moment,
You're not taking Earthlight into consideration. Midnight (moon time) on the near side always has a full Earth brightening things up. Midnight on the far side is extremely Dark.
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Re:Dark Side (Score:5, Informative)
Um, not it actually looks quite different. The lunar maria (the dark spots) are much less common. Reason being that those were formed by lava flows on the surface, and you can imagine that if there's molten rock inside, it would be pulled (as expected) towards a big nearby gravity well - Earth in this case.
Re:Dark Side (Score:5, Interesting)
Reason being that those were formed by lava flows on the surface, and you can imagine that if there's molten rock inside, it would be pulled (as expected) towards a big nearby gravity well - Earth in this case.
The difference in surface character on the two faces of the Moon are still a matter of considerable debate, and this particular just-so story--like so much that "just makes sense"--is completely false. References can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_mare [wikipedia.org]
There was recent work published suggesting the difference in hemispheres could be due to a late, large, low-velocity impact event that happened shortly after the lunar formation impact on Earth.
The biggest single lesson from the past 300 years of scientific discovery is that if something "just makes sense" to brains whose evolution has been driven primarily by the social processes of mate competition and mate selection then it is probably wrong. An educated person when presented with an explanation that has intuitive appeal will treat it with well-deserved suspicion until they have seen it publicly tested by systematic observation or controlled experiment (that is, scientifically validated) and not glibly repeat it as if it were knowledge rather than speculation.
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The biggest single lesson from the past 300 years of scientific discovery is that if something "just makes sense" to brains whose evolution has been driven primarily by the social processes of mate competition and mate selection then it is probably wrong. An educated person when presented with an explanation that has intuitive appeal will treat it with well-deserved suspicion until they have seen it publicly tested by systematic observation or controlled experiment (that is, scientifically validated) and not glibly repeat it as if it were knowledge rather than speculation.
Perhaps it was your own desire to impress potential mates that led you to dedicate more of your post to tut-ting the GP rather than dealing with the topic at hand.
Forget about mating; study science instead! (Score:2)
Considering this text, I can't imagine why the interest in science education is waning...
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...and you can imagine that if there's molten rock inside, it would be pulled (as expected) towards a big nearby gravity well - Earth in this case.
You could imagine that, but from a physical reality point of view you would be quite wrong.
Consider the tides of Earths oceans. By your argument the whole ocean would slosh towards the Sun, including on the far side of the Earth. Please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Field_tidal.png [wikipedia.org]
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I thought it had more do with the fact that in order for stuff to hit the "near side" it'd have to pass close by the Earth, making it less likely than hitting the "far side".
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Secret Alien Moonbase (Score:2)
Clearly a fake (Score:4, Funny)
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Dark Side of the Moon (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Dark Side of the Moon (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like you never listened to Pink Floyd.
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It receives more light, but it's actually a relatively dark grey colour so it's not very bright to look at. It seems bright at night, of course, but that's just because it's sunlit and everything around you isn't.
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What wavelength is dark grey light?
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It doesn't have one. The mixture of wavelengths isn't even well-defined. It's any light with a spectrum that more-or-less evenly activates the different photoreceptors in the eye. And being "dark grey" it's of low intensity.
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So it's white light.
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We have this thing called "luminance" that often distinguishes one colour from another.
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And I'm trying to avoid any confusion for people who interpret the word "bright" as appearing bright versus being well-illuminated.
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er, one could claim that the black topped parking lot is "dark".
No one is claiming that it would be dark if you were standing on the moon, just that the moon itself, is a "dark" colour...
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All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by th
Disappointed (Score:5, Funny)
No hidden Nazis, Communist strike force, or Transformers.
Re:Disappointed (Score:5, Funny)
That's no space station. It's a moon!
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Hi, Gary. Been back to Pullman [wsucougars.com] lately?
Toto... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not first Video of the far side of the moon (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I'm almost positive that this is not the first video of the far side of the moon (and certainly not the first images, that was done by some Russian probe back in the 60s I think).
Not only did the aforementioned Apollo astronauts take moving images (ok, maybe not technically video) of the far side during their orbits but I recall that even the recent Japanese or Chinese lunar probes were transmitting hi-def videos including (I think) a beautiful "earth-rise". Which by definition means they had to be imaging at least part of the far side.
No, this is just the first video of the far side from GRAIL (which is pretty awesome regardless). Now there is a chance that due to the fact that GRAIL entails TWO spacecraft that one could be acting as a relay which would make this the first LIVE video from the far side. But considering the small separation distance of them (less than 100km?) I doubt it.
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Especially the crap "video". It actually looks like taken during the 60s, recorded to VHS from TV, transferred to another VHS tape, and then converted to digital by filming it from an old TV with a 10 year old point-and-shoot camera.
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Re:Not first Video of the far side of the moon (Score:4, Informative)
NASA's GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon. The imagery was taken on Jan. 19 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission's "Ebb" spacecraft.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20120201.html [nasa.gov] (Emphasis added)
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Yup, I remember the famous "earth rise" video taken in the early 70's by one of the Apollo missions!
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Today, cell phones record in HD.
Come one, you're sending a probe to the moon and you can't afford an HD camera ? This is nuts !
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I know the iPhone is the shiznit and all but will its camera withstand cosmic rays, van allen belts, vibration and hot-cold temperature cycles of 200 degrees C, with a probability of failure of less than 1% over a year?
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When you see the earth coming up over the (lunar) horizon, the part of the moon your are seeing BELOW you is the far side because you cannot see the earth from it. (True, it is awfully close to the near side being on the "border" as it is.)
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Now we'll know... (Score:3)
Now we'll know exactly when to start the Wizard of Oz.
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When the Lion roars for the third time.
NASA needs to do a story about Jupiter and monoliths now.
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That is, hit Play on your music source when the lion roars for the third time.
Parallel Universe... (Score:1)
The Far side... (Score:2)
Sorry, you caught me with my pants down, NASA...
Re:Crater witih + sign (Score:4, Funny)
Whats the crater on the bottom right with the PLUS + sign thing in it?
Bloody hell, Google's taking the social networking war to the next level.
central uplift (Score:2)
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Thanks Grover.
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What does Gary Larson have to say about this ?
Avoid space.com (Score:5, Insightful)
Could everybody avoid posting links to articles on space.com? They never cite or link to sources and go overboard with interstitial, pop-up and video ads.
Links:
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>> interstitial
Its spelled interstellar.
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Uh... what? [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, I thought it could be an attempt at a joke, but didn't seem funny enough to be one.
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http://adblockplus.org/en/ [adblockplus.org]
I don't see a single ad on space.com. But yes, the never citing sources thing is annoying.
No Nazi's? (Score:1)
No house! (Score:3)
In German if someone is kinda ignorant, dumb, or stupid, they are often described as "living behind the moon."
People tend to say that to me often. Now that I have a video of the far side of the moon, finally I will be able to prove to all the idiots that they were WRONG!
prior art (Score:3)
From 2007 on YouTube [youtube.com], here is a video. Low-res, admittedly.
Noob Question (Score:5, Interesting)
I always wondered, are the speeds of rotation of the moon and Earth so perfectly synced that even after a long time the same side of the moon is facing us? I'd think there might be at least a little speed difference that over the years would cause our view of the moon to shift.
Re:Noob Question (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they are. Also, gravity (via tidal forces) ensures this will be case in the future as well, having caused it in the first place.
Re:Noob Question (Score:5, Informative)
We're tidally locked which means at this point it's most stable for the moon to always face us. If something caused the moon to speed up its rotation a little bit, for instance, tidal locking would force it to slow back down to get back perfectly in sync with Earth. Earth is headed down the same path. I can't remember how many millions or billions of years it'll take, but eventually the Moon will slow down Earth's rotation and Earth will be tidally locked to the Moon, such that the same side of Earth will always be towards the Moon.
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Because of libration, we can, over time, see more than 50% of the moon from Earth. But billions of years from now, not only will the moon still be locked with the Earth, but the Earth will be locked with the moon. By then it will have been engulfed by the sun, anyway.
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As far as I know this is just luck that we're at the point in time when this is true (the moon is getting very slowly closer).
Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
first! (Score:1)
Grrr. First by me doesn't mean first. (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a Clue : It's Grail's first video, not anything like the first video.
Never mind Luna 3 in 1959 (which was stills). Never mind Lunar Orbiter (stills) and Apollo (movies). Never mind that Clementine mapped the whole of the Far Side over a decade ago. What about Selene ? It had an HD camera, and sent back video of far side, including cool shots like this one [selene.jaxa.jp], of Malapert Mt and Shackleton Crater, at the Lunar South Pole, or this video [wn.com] of Tsiolkovsky Crater, deep into the Far Side. These videos are cool, and worth spending some time with.
Obviously fake... (Score:2)
So obviously fake! I mean, if it were real we'd be able to see the crash site of the Transformer space ship! Yet another NASA cover-up...
Tidal Lock? (Score:1)
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Can someone explain why it is referred to as tidal locking? I understand the physics, but the name seems like an odd choice.
My first temptation is to explain the physics, but you claim to already understand that. But if that were the case, you would already understand the answer to your question, too. So I'm confused about what you're actually asking. I'll simply refer you here: Tidal locking [wikipedia.org]. Once you understand what tidal locking is and how it occurs, why it's called that should be completely obvious.
1973 Video of Dark Side of the Moon (Score:2)
Pink Floyd - 1973 - Dark Side Of The Moon [youtube.com]