‘World’s clearest Moon picture’ has been revealed by astrophotographer who spent two weeks capturing it
THE 'world's clearest picture of the Moon's craters' has been revealed.
The stunning image is courtesy of a Californian astrophotographer who combined snaps of 'lunar phases' to create it.
Andrew McCarthy stacked thousands of Moon photos together to create the masterpiece.
He took two weeks worth of images of the waxing Moon because this is a time when the amount of visible illuminated surfaces increase.
This increased light and good positioning of the 'lunar terminator' – the line between light and dark sides of the Moon – has made the craters look more pronounced.
It's also said to make them look elongated.
Mr McCarthy has called the snap 'All Terminator' and described it as a "beast of a project".
He wrote on his Instagram @cosmic_background: "This moon might look a little funny to you, and that's because it is an impossible scene.
"From two weeks of images of the waxing moon, I took the section of the picture that has the most contrast (right before the lunar terminator where shadows are the longest), aligned and blended them to show the rich texture across the entire surface."
He added: "This was exhausting to say the least, namely because the moon doesn't line up day over day, so each image had to be mapped to a 3D sphere and adjusted to make sure each image aligned."
Luckily for us, he might try to create another image if he gets good feedback.
The image shows off a lot of the Moon's stunning craters
The Moon – our closest neighbour explained
Here's what you need to know...
- The Moon is a natural satellite – a space-faring body that orbits a planet
- It's Earth's only natural satellite, and is the fifth biggest in the Solar System
- The Moon measures 2,158 miles across, roughly 0.27 times the diameter of Earth
- Temperatures on the Moon range from minus 173 degrees Celcius to 260 degrees Celcius
- Experts assumed the Moon was another planet, until Nicolaus Copernicus outlined his theory about our Solar System in 1543
- It was eventually assigned to a "class" after Galileo discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610
- The Moon is believed to have formed around 4.51billion years ago
- The strength of its gravitational field is about a sixth of Earth's gravity
- Earth and the Moon have "synchronous rotation", which means we always see the same side of the Moon – hence the phrase "dark side of the Moon"
- The Moon's surface is actually dark, but appears bright in the sky due to its reflective ground
- During a solar eclipse, the Moon covers the Sun almost completely. Both objects appear a similar size in the sky because the Sun is both 400 times larger and farther
- The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was in 1959, as part of the Soviet Union's Lunar program
- The first manned orbital mission was Nasa's Apollo 8 in 1968
- And the first manned lunar landing was in 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission
In other news, a 'nearby' star in our galaxy may have just emitted a mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs).
Nasa has a list of 22 asteroids that might hit Earth.
And, Elon Musk has plans to make his Starlink satellites "invisible to the naked eye".
Would you like to go to the Moon one day? Let us know in the comments...
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