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Credit & Copyright: Sage Gray
Explanation:
A prominent impact site
anchored in the lunar Oceanus Procellarum,
Copernicus crater is at the center of this
telescopic portrait in
light and shadow.
Caught in stacked and sharpened video frames recorded on April 14 at
3:30am UTC, the lunar terminator, or boundary between night and day,
cuts across the middle of the 93 kilometer diameter crater.
Sunlight is just beginning to strike its
tall western walls
but doesn't yet shine on lower terrain nearby,
briefly extending the crater's outline into the lunar nightside.
At that moment standing
at
Copernicus crater you could watch the sunrise,
an
event that happens at Copernicus every 29.5 days.
Of course that corresponds to a lunar month or a lunation, the time
between consecutive Full Moons, as
seen from planet Earth.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Moon
Publications with words: Moon
See also: