Japan's Kaguya lunar probe sends back stunning high-definition footage from an extremely low altitude
Posted 06.08.2009 at 12:31 pm
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Japan's Kaguya lunar surveyor craft has sent back fresh HD clips as its orbit slowly degrades, bringing it closer than ever to the surface. In two days it will crash-land, bringing its mission to an end, but until then, it's keeping the ultra-crisp, almost surreal lunar footage coming.
The top clip here was shot from an altitude of just seven miles, while the second one below is from 13 miles up:
Just like the first HD video we saw from the craft two years ago (at a height of 62 miles), it's sharpness almost makes it look like an animation. But in fact this is the real thing, from a vantage point only a handful of humans have ever seen. These came out on Friday, and if you haven't already spent your weekend ogling them, please begin to do so now.
[JAXA]
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Show us the Apollo landing sites.
Agreed.
All this makes me think of is CG effects. I don't "know" that that's real.
I made a proposal to send back to earth HD Imax footage of Mars from up close and personal using a Mars balloon with a wind riding surface rover attached called The Windsurfer pulled by a sail or drogue chute at the 2005 Mars Society conference.
Note the proposal would have the Windsurfer hovering close to the surface pulling a rover with just the help of the wind for over one thousand Kilometers. Imagine what the more diverse color landscape of Mars would look like up close and personal in HD 3D. Check out this animation.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg9OCyyPi4M
A place to see the PDF of Mars Presentation: Commercially Funded Robotic Expedition
www.shineinnovations.com/5812.html
I'll bet there are an unimaginable number of us who would ask that same question! Show us some sign of when we were there! Although it still won't necessarily "prove" anything, I find it interesting that no one with such imagery has ever shown man's remnants from the Apollo Program, or any of the other stuff any space program has left on the moon.
Why not swing the Hubble around and get us a nice photo of a landing site? I'll bet it would be worth money.
psciz:
Why do people say just take a picture with the Hubble.
Research it!
It's impossible, believe it or not the moon is bloody far away and the only thing restricting Hubble from doing this is its resolution, it's just not good enough. It's impossible for Hubble to take an image of the landing sites on the moon. It's resolution is at a guess around 100m per pixel! yes, a football stadium would appear as ONE pixel.
Quite frankly if this Japanese satelite doesn't take pictures of the landing sites it's because they feel they don't need to proove it but you never know they may take some images to shut up these idiotic conspiracy theories.
oh and:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/07/16/japanese-selene-kaguya-lunar-mission-spots-apollo-15-landing-site-imag...
Unreal! I dont beleve it!
At the same time you can also access this URL http://www.dragonflytours-japan.com
it also has relevant information
The fact of the matter is, if they did take pictures of the Apollo landing sites, the conspiracy theorists will simply not be pleased. They'll claim the photos were doctored. The only thing that will end this debate is if people actually visit these sites and see it for themselves.