PIA14011: Nearside Spectacular


Nearside Spectacular

Caption:

LROC WAC mosaic of the lunar nearside.

For two weeks in mid-December 2010, the LRO spacecraft remained nadir looking (straight down) so that the LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) could acquire ~1300 images, allowing the LROC team to construct this spectacular mosaic. As the Moon rotated under LRO's orbit, the ground track progressed from east to west (right to left in this mosaic), and the incidence angle at the equator increased from 69° to 82° (at noontime the incidence angle is 0°).

Click here for larger image of PIA14011
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Same WAC mosaic with major mare and craters labeled.
The Moon's diameter is 3474 kilometers (2159 miles)

Background Info:

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera was designed to acquire data for landing site certification and to conduct polar illumination studies and global mapping. Operated by Arizona State University, LROC consists of a pair of narrow-angle cameras (NAC) and a single wide-angle camera (WAC). The mission is expected to return over 70 terabytes of image data.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Moon
System Earth
Target Type Satellite
Mission Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
Instrument Host Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (WAC)
Detector Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), Wide Angle Camera (WAC)
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale, Rotation
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2011-02-21
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14011
Identifier PIA14011