PIA00113: Moon Color Composite


Moon Color Composite

Caption:

This color image of the Moon was taken by the Galileo spacecraft at 9:35 a.m. PST Dec. 9, 1990, at a range of about 350,000 miles. The color composite uses monochrome images taken through violet, red, and near-infrared filters. The concentric, circular Orientale basin, 600 miles across, is near the center; the nearside is to the right, the far side to the left. At the upper right is the large, dark Oceanus Procellarum; below it is the smaller Mare Humorum. These, like the small dark Mare Orientale in the center of the basin, formed over 3 billion years ago as basaltic lava flows. At the lower left, among the southern cratered highlands of the far side, is the South-Pole-Aitken basin, similar to Orientale but twice as great in diameter and much older and more degraded by cratering and weathering. The cratered highlands of the near and far sides and the Maria are covered with scattered bright, young ray craters.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Moon
System Earth
Target Type Satellite
Mission Galileo
Instrument Host Galileo Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Solid-State Imaging (SSI)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Crater, Infrared
Acquisition Date
Release Date 1996-02-02
Date in Caption 1990-12-09
Image Credit NASA/JPL
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00113
Identifier PIA00113