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The Earth As You Have Never Seen It Before

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Under Science · Leave a Comment 


Forty-two years ago NASA has amazed the world with the release of an image from the Lunar Orbiter 1 which presented a picture of the Moons surface being eclipsed by the appearance of Earth above it. It is easy to understand that the quality of the image was very poor and still traveled around the world and people were amazed by it. In memory of that event NASA has decided to release a different version of the picture which was modified so that every detail is visible. However, this effect was not obtained through zooming in or applying filters to the original shot. NASA has decided to take a different approach to this issue and they have come up with a technology like no other. This new concept uses a special digital process and analog machines that have been refurbished to extract all information captured in 1966 on magnetic tapes.
Throughout history, the Lunar Orbiter conducted five missions with the sole purpose of mapping the lunar surface in order to detect possible landing areas for Apollo. During the first three missions specialists were able to discover 20 potential land sites while the following two concentrated more on the actual mapping. As a result, NASA now has photos of 99% of the moon surface taken from high altitude orbits with resolutions between 2 and 60 meters.

Even though the probes were not too sophisticated, nor comparable to the high detail cameras found on the Selene Spacecraft that was built by the Japanese, the American orbiters were smart. And by that we understand that NASA achieved almost the same results 40 years ago by using a dual lens camera – with a 610 millimeter narrow angle meant to produce a high resolution or an 80 millimeter wide angle for pictures with medium resolution. Also the specialists used scanners and film processors to obtain the shots. In order to cancel the motion of the ship as to obtain clear pictures, the Lunar Orbiter was equipped with optical and electrical sensors that were measuring distances and with a small motorized device that would shift the film. Next, all information was sent to NASA headquarters where specialists processed, analyzed and stored everything on tapes.

This new project is called the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project and it takes place at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The purpose is to retrieve all data that is stored on those analog tapes, even the data that could not be analyzed in the 60’s as the technology did not allow it back then. In order to achieve this they had to restore over 1500 of the original tapes. Next, NASA specialists moved the information obtained on a digitized format and stored it on computers. Only afterwards did they extract the additional information that led to the creation of this amazing picture.

This entire project is aimed to refresh the information that NASA possesses in order to be of help to them in the coming mission of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that will take place next year.

Via: Gizmodo

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