LROC Earthset

  • Released Tuesday, December 15th, 2015
  • Updated Friday, August 25th, 2023 at 12:07AM
  • ID: 4408
The Earth straddling the limb of the Moon, as seen from above Compton crater (51.8°N, 124.1°E). The center of the Earth in this view is 4.05°S, 12.48°W, about 1100 kilometers due south of Sierra Leone. The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara desert, and just beyond is the Arabian Peninsula. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left. WAC E1199291151C (Earth only), NAC M1199291564LR (Earth and Moon); sequence start time 12 October 2015 12:18:17.384 UTC.

The Earth straddling the limb of the Moon, as seen from above Compton crater (51.8°N, 124.1°E). The center of the Earth in this view is 4.05°S, 12.48°W, about 1100 kilometers due south of Sierra Leone. The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara desert, and just beyond is the Arabian Peninsula. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left. WAC E1199291151C (Earth only), NAC M1199291564LR (Earth and Moon); sequence start time 12 October 2015 12:18:17.384 UTC.

This image of the Earth setting behind the lunar horizon was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on October 12, 2015. The image is a composite of pixels from the narrow-angle (NAC) and wide-angle (WAC) sensors. Here, it has been cropped to a 16:9 frame aspect for display on NASA's hyperwall.

Because the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, an observer on the Moon doesn't actually see the Earth rise and set. The setting that's occurring in this instance is caused by the orbital motion of the spacecraft.
The same image, without the color overlay from the WAC.

The same image, without the color overlay from the WAC.

The same image as above, without WAC color and the contrast enhancement of the lunar surface.

The same image as above, without WAC color and the contrast enhancement of the lunar surface.

For More Information

See LROC: Looking over the Limb

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

LRO LROC WAC (Collected with the Wide Angle Camera sensor)
Observed Data October 12, 2015
See more visualizations using this data set
LRO NAC (A.K.A. Narrow Angle Camera) (Collected with the LROC sensor)
See more visualizations using this data set

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.