NASA has
just released a 4K video tour of Earth’s moon and the footage will make your
jaw drop.
How can we describe the video footage?
What a stunning view. Image Credit: YouTube
Image Credit: YouTube.
So, the end of the Moon landing conspiracy…right?
Even though
Earth’s moon can be viewed in unprecedented detail from Earth, NASA has
recently released a video filmed in 4k showing off the surface of the moon in
unprecedented close-up detail, and the video will definitely take your breath
away.
How can we describe the video footage?
Well, it’s
stunning. It’s mesmerizing. It’s Fresh. It offers an entirely new way of
exploring the surface of the moon, and you can see all of the most important
and prominent features of the Earth’s satellite in the stunning video footage.
The footage
dubbed as “virtual tour of the moon” in breathtaking 4K has been collected by
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft over a span of nine years.
What a stunning view. Image Credit: YouTube
“The tour visits a number of interesting sites chosen to illustrate a variety of lunar terrain features,” Ernie Wright of NASA’s Space Visualization Studio explained in a blog post. “Some are on the near side and are familiar to both professional and amateur observers on Earth, while others can only be seen clearly from space.”
Wright
explains that this recently published video is, in fact, an updated version of
another one released 7 years ago, in 2011. Despite the fact that the camera
path may be the same, the data that has been gathered in 7 years has made it
possible for NASA to create a far more incredible and detailed presentation of
the moon.
Image Credit: YouTube.
The recently
released 4k video displays a number of the moon’s features, combining colors
that highlight important or noteworthy data to make sure you not only enjoy the
view but learn something new. One of the most interesting parts of the video is
when we have the chance to fly over the Tycho Crater, a lunar formation said to
be around 100 million years old.
The most
interesting part occurs when you think you’ve seen the best part, the video
zooms in unprecedently, focusing on Tycho Crater’s mesmerizing central peak
which features an enigmatic 100-meter-wide bolder at the summit, “the origins
of which are still a mystery,” the video’s narrator says, adding to the
suspense.
In addition
to the Tycho crater, you can also fly above the Apollo 17 landing site at the
Taurus-Littrow Valley, which as explained in the video, is deeper than the
Grand Canyon on Earth.
So, the end of the Moon landing conspiracy…right?
I wonder,
does that make the Taurus-Littrow Valley the ‘Grander Canyon’?
Anyway,
while exploring the Apollo 17 landing site, the video offers a few overlays
that show us the path NASA astronauts took as they spent three days on the
surface of the moon in 1972.
You can
appreciate the bottom half of the mission’s lunar lander and rover vehicle,
items that have remained untouched and undisturbed for the last 46 years.
This video
is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be
downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4619
Credit:
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/David Ladd