Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Moon Looms Large

Our visualization screen shows the Moon growing larger by the minute. I've asked our visualization lead to convey a screen capture to the deputy project manager for posting on the LRO blog.

A last-quarter Moon is approaching LRO. Half of the near side (the face that perpetually faces Earth) and half of the far side is visible, with the latter being illuminated by sunlight. Most conspicuous is Mare Orientale, a large impact feature that looks like a bull's eye at the center of the lunar face. This hemisphere (western) is the "leading" edge of the Moon as it revolves around Earth.

"Orientale" means "eastern" even though it's actually western. That's because the feature was discovered and named when astronomical convention mirrored terrestrial cardinal points instead of reorienting them onto coordinate systems of other worlds.

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