Funny– in these days of probes to Saturn, Pluto, and Mars, I’m used to it taking months and years for a launched probe to reach its target.
It’s easy to forget that the Moon is just a few days away.
The Japanese probe Kaguya was launched just a couple of weeks ago, but it’s already settled into taking data! This image, from the Lunar Picture of the Day, shows the probe itself (the high-gain antenna is on the right, and an instrument package on the left) with the Moon in the background. The craters have been labeled by Jim Mosher. Note that most of the craters have Russian names– that’s because it’s the Moon’s far side, and the first folks to see them were the Soviets! Their probes were the first to circle around the Moon and take images, and that gave them the right to name the features.
The Russians got there first with their robotic proxies, and then the Americans with robots and then humans, and now we have the Japanese. Soon there will be Indians and Chinese there, too.
The image above is from a small camera built specifically to monitor the antenna, and not do any science. The high-res cameras will take incredible images, with resolution of features down to a few meters! Next year, when LRO goes, it will have half-meter resolution. We will soon have maps of the Moon that rival those of the Earth. I hope Google is ready for it!
Tip o’ the reentry shield to Larry Klaes.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:31 am
When will we see the altered pictures of Apollo landing sites?
October 10th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I guess if they happen to see any of the Apollo equipment, the hoaxters will claim the images were faked. Sometimes you just can’t win. But it’s their loss. I’m looking forward to seeing the Moon that close!
October 10th, 2007 at 11:00 am
What will the hoaxters say why the Japanese did alter the pictures?
Wheat again?
October 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Do we have a date for when the pictures will be released? My initial guess would be a year from now, depending on how long the Japanese need to produce some initial analysis.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Resolutions down to a few metres may still be too grainy for the Japanese to make out Apollo era equipment on the surface of the moon, so the Japanese won’t have to “fake” anything.
Still, the Japanese may release a few “photo-op” pictues within the next couple of months, even if most of the data doesn’t get released for a year after aquisition. Even a few choice morsels will give the rest of us something to really drool over.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Is that what is called a “blue Moon”?
October 10th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
[CT]
It’s a conspiracy, I tells ya!
So they put that thing in orbit around the moon, and then they still put a camera with only 10m/pixel spatial resolution on there! They want to hide something up there!
[/CT]
Seriously, they have some really cool stuff on that probe, like a ‘baby’ satellite, with which they do Very Long Baseline Interferometry. And they threw in a HDTV camera, just for fun.
Reminds why I became a scientist: Science is KEWL!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
My first thought when I saw the antenna was that it was a joke image- I could have sworn a pair of silver briefs were in the picture.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:08 am
After the Russians and Americans but before the Japanese, the Europeans with SMART-1.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:19 am
So far as I know, the hoax people admit we can put unmanned objects on the moon but claim the manned landings were a fake. So I predict they’ll claim that the landing site equipment is just junk sent up in an unmanned mission to resemble the “supposed” landings. Doubtless they’ll come up with absolutely insane amounts of smoke’n'mirrors showing why the landing sites don’t look like the sites in the Apollo images.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:06 am
Give it up for my latest astro gal-pal, Kaguya!
October 11th, 2007 at 6:38 am
As often as I’ve seen the moon in both my telescope and in books on Apollo, it still is cool to get an “overall” view.
Hmm, a few meter resolution huh?
I wonder how many hoax believers will eat their words (especially as this is a Japanese probe) and how many will give more song and dance as to why not to trust images from this probe that’ll discredit their claims (as if their claims HAD any credit).
I’m axious to see what the LRO will do. It’d be too cool for it to snap an image and show us how the lunar rovers have held up.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
OMG OMG NO STARS!!!! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! NOSTARS! OMG!!!!11111
October 11th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Has anyone checked out the latest Japanese cell phones? They are so small and packed with multiple features and numerous capabilities, compared this satellite is a huge piece of geography for all type of features and capabilities. I bet it even has a Hello Kitty beverage holder for good measure. I’m wondering if they are telling us the whole story about this satellite? I’m just saying……….. =p
I love your site by the way!
October 12th, 2007 at 12:24 am
You never know: maybe the Japanese will tell everyone they couldn’t find anything to indicate anyone had ever landed there, just to mess with us.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Loaf of Bread said:
“Resolutions down to a few metres may still be too grainy for the Japanese to make out Apollo era equipment on the surface of the moon, so the Japanese won’t have to “fake†anything.”
That’s right. The largest piece of Apollo hardware left behind would be the LM descent stages (six of them in all). These are about 2 m across (not counting the “legs”, but the legs are too narrow to show up on a coarse image), so would show up as a single pixel on a picture with 2 m resolution. The lunar rovers (three of them, from Apollos 15, 16 and 17) are (very roughly) 1 m x 2 m so would only show up on a picture with 1 m resolution, probably as two adjacent pixels.
Other bits of Apollo hardware left behind are of the order of 50 cm or so in size, depending upon the viewing angle (the several components of each ALSEP, solar wind collecters, the laser reflectors and so on). Thus, these would need a resolution about 20 times better than that possessed by Kaguya’s camera to show up even as a single pixel.
Flags and footprints will be the hardest things to see from lunar orbit, being quite narrow as viewed from orbit.
October 14th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Nigel, I think you’re underestimating the sizes of the LMs and the rovers. The Ascent stages were about the size you estimate (remember they had room inside for 2 guys in space suits) but the
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descent stages were considerably larger, about 15-18 feet across (5-6 meters), not counting the legs. Remember they were launched, with the legs folded up, inside the conical adapter between the 3rd stage of the Saturn 5 (22 feet diameter) and the Apollo (about 12′, IIRC), and
they filled most of that space. The top (narrower) part was occupied by the ascent stage, with the descent stage down in the lower (wider) part of that cone. (It would probably be easier just to do a google search to find the actual dimensions
The rovers were big enough to hold 2 astronauts sitting side by side wearing space suits, so they had to be at least as big as a compact car, 2+ meters by 3-4 meters.
The other stuff was about the size you indicated, IIRC.
I think the easiest thing to see would be the rover’s tracks, two parallel lines about 3 meters apart. Compare how easy it is to see the Mars Rover’s tracks in the MRO images, which are much smaller.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
i cant wait to see the evidence, that the fukn red necks didn’t land on the moon. trust me!
January 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am
i think its good news that the japenese are getting serious about space exploration as they seem to be miles ahead of everyone in the technology stakes. im not into conspiracies or anything like that but i wonder what would happen if some images come back of a crystal clear moon base that would realy be cool.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Conspiracy theories won’t go away until the emotional needs that fuel them go away. Don’t waste your energy trying to prove something to people who don’t WANT to understand the nature of evidence.
July 26th, 2010 at 2:11 am
The moon hoax people are like herpes. They’ll never go away.