A
4K video tour of the Earth’s moon has been released by NASA, showing off the
surface in an extraordinary detail. The footage explores the features of the
moon and it is stunning... collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
spacecraft over a period of nine years, the footage is dubbed as “virtual tour
of the moon” in a fascinating 4K detail.
“The
tour visits a number of interesting sites chosen to illustrate a variety of
lunar terrain features,” Ernie Wright of NASA’s Space Visualization Studio
explained in a blog post. “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.”
Another
video has been released 7 years ago, Wright explained that the footage is an
updated version from 2011. The data has been collected over 7 years as the
camera path has been the same, so that the detailed footage of the moon can be
created.
The
footage displays many different features such as the Tycho Crater, as the
Crater features an enigmatic 100-meter-wide bolder at the summit. “The origins
of which are still a mystery,” the video’s narrator says, adding to the
suspense. The Tycho Creater is lunar formation said to be around 100 million
years old. The footage let us see the incredible detail of the moon’s features,
combining colors that highlights noteworthy data to explore something new as
well to enjoy the view.
Never
the less, as explained in the video the Apollo 17 landing site at the
Tauruas-Littrow Valley is shown in the footage and it is deeper than the Grand
Canyon on Earth. The video offers overlays that shows the path where astronauts
spent three days on the surface of the moon in 1972. As you zoom in, the
footage shows the rover vehicle and the bottom half of the mission’s lunar
lander, which has been remained undisturbed for the last 46 years.