APOD: 2024 July 24 Б Exaggerated Moon
Explanation:
Our Moon doesn't really have craters this big.
Earth's Moon, Luna, also doesn't naturally show this spikey texture,
and its colors are more subtle.
But this digital creation is based on reality.
The featured image is a digital composite of a good Moon image
and surface height data taken from NASA's
Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) mission
-- and then exaggerated for
educational understanding.
The digital enhancements, for example, accentuate lunar
highlands and
show more clearly craters that illustrate the
tremendous bombardment our Moon has been through during its
4.6-billion-year history.
The dark areas, called
maria,
have fewer craters and were once seas of
molten lava.
Additionally, the image
colors, although based on the
moon's real composition, are changed and exaggerated.
Here, a blue hue indicates a region that is
iron rich, while orange indicates a slight excess of
aluminum.
Although the
Moon has shown the
same side to the Earth for billions of years,
modern technology is allowing humanity to learn
much more about it -- and how it
affects the Earth.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
