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Tour of the Moon
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- Visualizations by:
- Ernie Wright
- View full credits
Using elevation and image data returned by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this animation takes the viewer on a virtual tour of the Moon. The tour visits a number of interesting sites chosen to illustrate a wide variety of lunar terrain features. Some are on the near side and are familiar to both professional and amateur observers on Earth, while others can only be seen clearly from space. Some are large and old (Orientale, South Pole-Aitken), others are smaller and younger (Tycho, Aristarchus). Constantly shadowed areas near the poles are hard to photograph but easier to measure with altimetry, while several of the Apollo landing sites, all relatively near the equator, have been imaged at resolutions as high as 25 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel.
The shape of the terrain in this animation is based primarily on data from LRO's laser altimeter (LOLA), supplemented by stereo image data from its wide angle camera (LROC WAC) and from Japan's Kaguya mission. The global surface color is from Clementine.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animator
- Ernie Wright (USRA) [Lead]
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Scientist
- James Garvin (NASA, Chief Scientist Goddard)
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Producer
- Chris Smith (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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LRO NAC (Narrow Angle Camera)
ID: 652 -
LRO
ID: 212 -
Clementine
ID: 8 -
LRO DEM (Digital Elevation Map)
ID: 653 -
Kaguya Kaguya Stereo DEM (DTM)
ID: 715Formerly known as "SELENE".
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.