Supermoon Eclipse 2015 Live Shots Interviews And B-roll

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  • 
    ID: 4356 Visualization

    LRO and the September 27-28, 2015 Lunar Eclipse: Telescopic View

    Sept. 15th, 2015
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    || Dial-A-Moon || Typically, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft flies over the night side of the Moon every two hours, spending about 45 minutes in darkness. Because LRO is powered by sunlight, it uses a rechargeable battery to operate while on the night side of the Moon and then charges the battery when it comes back around into daylight.During the total lunar eclipse of September 27-28, 2015, however, LRO emerges from the night side of the Moon only to find the Sun blocked by the Earth. LRO needs to travel an entire orbit before seeing the Sun again, relying continuously on its battery for almost three hours.LRO won’t be in any real danger as long as its power consumption is handled carefully. Except for LRO's infrared radiometer, called Diviner, its scientific instruments will be turned off temporarily, while vital subsystems like the heaters will remain on. LRO will be closely monitored throughout the eclipse.Diviner maps the temperature on the Moon's surface along a swath below LRO's orbit. During the eclipse, the instrument will precisely measure the rapid temperature changes that occur as the Moon enters and leaves the Earth's shadow. When compared with normal daylight variations, these measurements will reveal new details about the top centimeter (half-inch) of lunar regolith. Diviner wasn't specifically designed for this experiment, but as scientists have gained experience with the LRO spacecraft, they've thought of new and creative ways of using its instruments.This animation shows the Moon as it might look through a telescope on Earth, along with LRO’s orbit, its view of the Sun, and a fuel gauge showing received sunlight and the battery’s charge. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4341 Visualization

    September 27, 2015 Total Lunar Eclipse: View from the Moon

    Sept. 1st, 2015
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    With the lunar horizon in the foreground, the Earth passes in front of the Sun, revealing the red ring of sunrises and sunsets along the limb of the Earth. The Earth and Sun are in Virgo for observers on the Moon. The bright star above them is beta Virginis.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || On September 28, 2015 Universal Time (the evening of the 27th for the Americas), the Moon enters the Earth’s shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse. When viewed from the Moon, as in this animation, the Earth hides the Sun. A red ring, the sum of all Earth’s sunrises and sunsets, lines the Earth’s limb and casts a ruddy light on the lunar landscape. With the darkness of the eclipse, the stars come out.The city lights of North and South America and of western Europe and Africa are visible on the night side of the Earth. The part of the Earth visible in this animation is the part where the lunar eclipse can be seen. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11981 Produced Video

    Supermoon Lunar Eclipse

    Aug. 31st, 2015
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    This animated video explains a rare event happening on September 27th, 2015 - a supermoon lunar eclipse. For complete transcript, click here.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel. || On the night of September 27th, 2015, a supermoon lunar ecllipse will be viewable in the night sky for those living in North and South America. Those living in Europe and Africa can view it in the early morning hours of September 28th.This video explains what a supermoon lunar eclipse is, and how rare it has been over the last century. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4349 Visualization

    Supermoon Eclipse 2015

    Aug. 28th, 2015
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    The geometry of the Moon's orbit in motion, from the end of August until the supermoon eclipse on September 27-28, 2015. The inner blue circle shows perigee distance, the outer blue circle shows apogee distance, and the off-center, light gray circle shows the Moon's orbit. Frame sequences with alpha channel are available for the separate elements of the animation.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || On September 28, 2015 (the night of the 27th in many places), the Moon will be full at the same time that it is closest to Earth for the year, a coincidence sometimes called a supermoon. As it happens, this largest Full Moon occurs within the Earth's shadow, creating the added spectacle of a total lunar eclipse.The Moon's orbit is very slightly elliptical and therefore somewhat off-center relative to the Earth. Each month, the Moon passes through points in its orbit called perigee and apogee, the closest and farthest points from the Earth for that month. Some perigees are a little closer than others. The closest perigee for 2015 occurs on September 28 at around 1:52 Universal Time, when the Moon will be 356,877 kilometers (221,753 miles) away. This is only an hour before the time of peak full Moon at 2:51 UT, when the Moon's ecliptic longitude differs from the Sun's by exactly 180 degrees.All of this takes place during a total lunar eclipse. The Moon makes first contact with the umbra, the central part of the Earth's shadow, at 1:07 UT, and it doesn't completely emerge until 4:27 UT.If we define a supermoon as a Full Moon that coincides with the closest perigee in a given year, then supermoons occur every 14 months, with occasional skips. The anomalistic month — the time between two perigees — is two days shorter than the cycle of phases, called the synodic month; the perigees "lap" the phases after 14 months.Total lunar eclipses involve a third cycle, the draconic month. The Moon's tilted orbit crosses the Earth-Sun plane at one of two points called nodes; a draconic month is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same node. Total lunar eclipses happen when a node crossing coincides with a Full Moon. Only then does the Moon's orbit carry it close enough to the Earth-Sun line to actually pass through the shadow cast by the Earth.A supermoon eclipse requires the alignment of all three cycles, the synodic, anomalistic, and draconic months, and this happens every 18 years 11 days, a period known as a saros. Eclipses separated by this period tend to share certain properties and are grouped into families, or saros series. The 2015 supermoon eclipse is the first in Saros 137. There will be seven more supermoon eclipses in this series, the last in December of 2141.The animation begins at the end of August showing that perigee and Full Moon miss each other by about a day. It then shows apogee on September 14, when the Moon is almost 32 Earth diameters away. It ends on September 28, the day of the supermoon eclipse, when the distance to the Moon is 28 Earth diameters. The Moon graphic in the upper left shows the change in the Moon's apparent size as it moves closer and farther in its orbit, as well as its copper color during the eclipse. The relative sizes of the Earth and Moon in the main orbit graphic are exaggerated by a factor of 15 to make them more easily visible. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4340 Visualization

    September 27, 2015 Total Lunar Eclipse: Shadow View

    Aug. 18th, 2015
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    Universal Time (UT). The Moon moves right to left, passing through the penumbra and umbra, leaving in its wake an eclipse diagram with the times at various stages of the eclipse. || On the evening of September 27, 2015 in the Americas (early morning on September 28 in Europe and most of Africa), the Moon enters the Earth’s shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse, the last of four visible in the Western Hemisphere in a span of 18 months. This animation shows the changing appearance of the Moon as it travels into and out of the Earth’s shadow, along with the times at various stages. Versions of the animation have been created for each of the four time zones of the contiguous United States, as well as one for Universal Time.All of South America and most of North and Central America will see the entire eclipse, while those west of roughly 120°W will see it in progress at moonrise. You won’t need special equipment to see it. Just go outside and look up!The penumbra is the part of the Earth’s shadow where the Sun is only partially covered by the Earth. The umbra is where the Sun is completely hidden. The Moon's appearance isn't affected much by the penumbra. The real action begins when the Moon starts to disappear as it enters the umbra at about 9:07 Eastern Daylight Time. An hour later, entirely within the umbra, the Moon is a ghostly copper color, and this lasts for over an hour before the Moon begins to emerge from the central shadow.The view in these animations is geocentric. Because of parallax, the Moon's position against the background stars will look a bit different for observers at different locations on the surface of the Earth. The Moon is in the southwestern part of the constellation Pisces. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4236 Visualization

    Moon Phase and Libration, 2015

    Dec. 9th, 2014
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    || Dial-A-Moon || New: Click on the image to download a high-resolution version with labels for craters near the terminator. The data in the table for the entire year can be downloaded as a JSON file or as a text file.The animation archived on this page shows the geocentric phase, libration, position angle of the axis, and apparent diameter of the Moon throughout the year 2015, at hourly intervals. Until the end of 2015, the initial Dial-A-Moon image will be the frame from this animation for the current hour.More in this series:Moon Phase and Libration GalleryLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been in orbit around the Moon since the summer of 2009. Its laser altimeter (LOLA) and camera (LROC) are recording the rugged, airless lunar terrain in exceptional detail, making it possible to visualize the Moon with unprecedented fidelity. This is especially evident in the long shadows cast near the terminator, or day-night line. The pummeled, craggy landscape thrown into high relief at the terminator would be impossible to recreate in the computer without global terrain maps like those from LRO.The Moon always keeps the same face to us, but not exactly the same face. Because of the tilt and shape of its orbit, we see the Moon from slightly different angles over the course of a month. When a month is compressed into 24 seconds, as it is in this animation, our changing view of the Moon makes it look like it's wobbling. This wobble is called libration.The word comes from the Latin for "balance scale" (as does the name of the zodiac constellation Libra) and refers to the way such a scale tips up and down on alternating sides. The sub-Earth point gives the amount of libration in longitude and latitude. The sub-Earth point is also the apparent center of the Moon's disk and the location on the Moon where the Earth is directly overhead.The Moon is subject to other motions as well. It appears to roll back and forth around the sub-Earth point. The roll angle is given by the position angle of the axis, which is the angle of the Moon's north pole relative to celestial north. The Moon also approaches and recedes from us, appearing to grow and shrink. The two extremes, called perigee (near) and apogee (far), differ by more than 10%.The most noticed monthly variation in the Moon's appearance is the cycle of phases, caused by the changing angle of the Sun as the Moon orbits the Earth. The cycle begins with the waxing (growing) crescent Moon visible in the west just after sunset. By first quarter, the Moon is high in the sky at sunset and sets around midnight. The full Moon rises at sunset and is high in the sky at midnight. The third quarter Moon is often surprisingly conspicuous in the daylit western sky long after sunrise.Celestial north is up in these images, corresponding to the view from the northern hemisphere. The descriptions of the print resolution stills also assume a northern hemisphere orientation. (There is also a south-up version of this page.) ||

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  • 
    ID: 4220 Visualization

    Hyperwall: Tycho Central Peak

    June 18th, 2014
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    This image set is formatted for NASA's hyperwall, a tiled display with a combined resolution of up to 9600 x 3240.On June 10, 2011, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) slewed 65° to the west, allowing its narrow-angle camera (the LROC NAC) to capture this dramatic sunrise view of the mountains at the center of Tycho crater. It's not hard to see why this image was the winner of the Moon as Art contest.A popular target of amateur astronomers, Tycho is located at 43.3°S, 11.4°W, and is about 85 kilometers (55 miles) wide. A system of bright ejecta rays radiating from the crater is easily visible in binoculars and small telescopes during Full Moon. The crater's features are so steep and sharp because it's only about 110 million years old, quite young by lunar standards. ||

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  • 
    ID: 10269 Produced Video

    LRO - Animation Stills (High Resolution)

    July 24th, 2008
    (updated July 19th, 2023)

    Custom stills for print, suitable for framing. || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT1 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT2 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT3 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT4 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT5 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT6 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT7 || LRO7-Apollo-PRINT8 || LRO7-Print1-FINAL || LRO7-Print2-FINAL || LRO7-Print3-FINAL || LRO7-Print4-FINAL || LRO7-Print5-FINAL || LRO7-Print6-FINAL || LRO7-Print7-FINAL || LRO7-Print8-FINAL || LRO7-Print9-FINAL || LRO7-Print10-FINAL || LRO7-Print11-FINAL || Closeup - looking across LRO's solar panel ||

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