The Japanese probe Kaguya has returned a series of very high-resolution images from the Moon. The Japanese space agency JAXA is claiming they make up the first high-def video ever returned from the Moon.
The video is very cool. They have it set up in a way that I cannot figure out how to embed it (grrrr), and it’s a flash file, so you have to go to the page and click the link they have there. I imagine it’ll be on YouTube pretty quickly though. 
Here is a still from the movie (click to embiggen):
The images are very nice, that’s for sure! This one is of the crater Repsold, which is about 100 km across. The long crack going across is it actually a rille, a gully carved by flowing lava when the Moon was still geologically active billions of years ago. Usually rilles are smooth and sinuous, and this one is a bit jagged. Evidently Repsold has been pummeled a bit since it was created; the rim has collapsed somewhat.
Repsold is located at a lunar latitude of about 50 degrees north, so it’s easily visible from Earth… but not at high resolution. Even though the Moon is close by, even the biggest telescopes on Earth can’t see objects smaller than about 50 or so meters across — it’s just a matter of physics. Even Hubble can’t see objects smaller than 100 meters across. We need to send probes to the Moon to see anything smaller, and it looks like Kaguya will be able to do just that.*
Here’s another shot from the video, this time of the north pole region:
Yikes, what a mess. The Moon has undergone extensive battering from impacts over the past 4.5 billion years. I’ve been waiting for images like this for a long, long time. And these are just the first! Just wait until next year, when NASA sends the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the Moon. It will have 50 cm (18 inch) resolution!
*OK, fine: to be honest, we can do better than that using a technique called adaptive optics However, that only allows us to map a small area of the sky at a time. We need probes to do real large-scale cartographic measurements.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:44 am
The first hi-res images from the LRO of Mare Tranquilitatis, Fra Mauro, and the rest (showing the descent stage of the LEM, and the various instruments left behind by the Astronauts), should be sent to Seibrel and company, with respects from NASA and the world of reality…
November 7th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Loved the HD movie. I hope Japan leads the way back. I expect they will dedicate themeselves to making that return a permanent and economically viable one. Then maybe someday I can visit and fly in an atmosphere containing, Lunar cavern???
Gary 7
November 7th, 2007 at 10:59 am
That’s really a spectacular series of images. Do you happen to know where NASA gets its optics? I know Japan has done some really technical work with digital cameras; I just bought a 10 MPX for under $300. which has 3X digital/4X optical focal lengths which don’t protrude from the body of the camera and weighs about 7 oz. Unbelievable!
November 7th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Sergeant Zim: they’d just change their tactic – sure, we landed some hardware on the moon, but there’s no evidence there were any people inside those spaceships…
*rolls eyes*
November 7th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Well, I’m less than impressed. The movie has no audio, and I wanted to hear what the man in the moon had to say about this new intrusion…
I suppose I’ll just have to be satisfied with stunning images and a magnificent HD movie instead
Thanks, Phil!
November 7th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Magnificent desolation indeed!
Those images need a scale. It’s really hard to tell how big things are…
November 7th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Like Sergeant Zim and Andy, I’d really like to see the lunar missions leftover too. I don’t doubt the hardware is there, nor do I doubt that there are human footprints aside them. I’d just like to see what’s left because it’s been so long since we’ve had a glimpse.
Besides, it would be great to finally send a nice warm cup of Shut Up to the folks who make a living hoaxing moon hoaxes (if you follow me.)
November 7th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Mmm! Ah! Plate. Knife. Cracker.
(Munch! Munch! Munch!)
Hmm… See what you think. Wensleydale? Stilton?
(Gulp!)
I don’t know, lad. It’s like no cheese I’ve ever tasted.
Let’s try another spot.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Pff… all those pictures are faked! There’s no stars in the background… it’s just a ball of plastacene (sp?) in front of a black cloth!!! The should have at least put holes in the black canvas to simulate all the stars that are in space!
November 7th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Actually, those are some really sweet pics. I can’t see the video at work as most players are blocked by IT. Wow… can’t wait for human kind to get back there. I’m also curious to see the trash that NASA left behind the first time.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
How is this the first HD video from the moon? The astronauts of Apollo used extremely high quality fine-grain super-16 film to take movies on the moon. That would would exceed most modern HD system’s resolution. They may have used 35mm as well, I’m not sure, but they did use 16.
In any case, a scan of old movie film doesn’t count as HD? Good movie film scanned to video can give you awesome HD video quality.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Nice to see someone still cares about the moon. So when can I expect the hoaxers to start saying these are all faked? LOL
November 7th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
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November 7th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Buzz: I believe (anyone correct me if I’m mistaken) that the original film is lost (like no-one-knows-where-it-is-lost, not destroyed-lost). I remember hearing something about a project to remaster and digitize the original stock to HD quality, either here or on NPR. BA, you got anything on this?
November 7th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
With all respects to Sgt Mim, Seibrel and company will still deny the reality if the pictures of the descent stage were sent by NASA from a NASA mission.
It would carry more weight if the Japanese or the Chinese or the Russians or the Indians profided the pics. After all, pictures can be doctored, and NASA has everything to gain by doctoring the pictures, right?
Anyway, that HDTV clip from Kugaya is awesome. I’m sure over the coming year JAXA will release a few more clips for our enjoyment.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Anybody else immediately have the theme music from “Space 1999″ start playing in your mind as you watched the video?
November 7th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Seems a little weird for them to claim HD resolutions, then toss up a decidedly non-HD movie (at 480X270 pixels, it’s barely SD quality). It would be great to see the same movie at the native resolution.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
These images have obviously been doctored! I can’t see a single big glass dome anywhere!!
November 7th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I agree with others who’ve said they’re looking forward to shots of our landers. Certainly it would give us a good hoaxers like Sibrel, who has specifically asked for pictures of them, as if our inability to see something so small (relative to the distance) were evidence that he’s right. But also I’d just like to see them. Call me anthropocentric, but I just like to see the manmade artifacts out there. (In Antarctica, I was most thrilled to check out old abandoned stations; the penguin colonies were fun, but exploring those old huts was *cool*.)
http://www.geocities.com/peyre1347/index.htm
November 7th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9p987VMGr0
November 7th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
HD gooooooooooooooood.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Ehh this is 480X270 so it hardly qualifies as HD but I would love to see the native resolution shots. I have read hundeds and hundreds of pages of 60s and 70s Apollo-era historical documents in the past weeks. I was just 10 years old when Neil made his “small step” but it certainly was the base for my lifetime interest in astronomy and manned spaceflight. I was glued to the TV whenever they had someting on Apollo on. Reading about those missions and all the preparations involved made me realize even more what a fantastic undertaking this has been. Can’t wait for those true HD video’s!
November 7th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Though I’ve seen the moon through my ‘scope many times, it’s still cool to see this video!
So, LRO will have a camera too? Even if it doesn’t, it’s still cool.
Pave the way, Kaguya!
Carey,
To my knowledge, it is the original, high quality recording of Apollo 11 that was lost, not that of the other missions.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Oh, how beautiful. Kudos to all who labored to get that hardware out there and doing its job. And thanks for the link, Phil.
November 7th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Here’s a slightly more direct video (and non-craptastic YouTube) link:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_movie_j.html
Amazing stuff. I keep wanting to reach into my monitor and run my hand across the surface.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
andy says: “they’d just change their tactic – sure, we landed some hardware on the moon, but there’s no evidence there were any people inside those spaceships…”
I’ve run into this line of reasoning with MHB’s and consider it their version of the “god of the gaps” argument.
My problem is in understanding just where their logical disconnect is. If they admit that spaceflight is possible (for machines), and it’s possible for humans (e.g. shuttle/ISS), then we’ve demonstrated all of the technology necessary for a trip to the moon. The energy needed to get from the Earth’s surface into orbit is about 80% of that needed for a moon landing mission. What is so impossible about grabbing the last 20%?
- Jack
November 8th, 2007 at 12:09 am
I don’t know which is more amazing: the fact that we can see (nearly) live pictures from the North Pole of the Moon or the fact that we can see all of this stuff on-demand for free because of the Internet. I hope they have live Internet links to and from any manned missions that are coming…
November 8th, 2007 at 10:02 am
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya.swf
that’s the URL you need to insert in the src= part of the embed code. be sure to keep the height at 315 and width at 480 or it will look distorted.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:42 am
>> we can see all of this stuff on-demand for free because of the Internet. I hope they have live Internet links to and from any manned missions that are coming…
Take out the ‘on-demand’ part and the previous generation had the exact same thing: television. The moon landings were televised, and very few were the poor suckers who didn’t beg, borrow, or steal their way in range of a television set.
Of course, manned missions tend to be boring except for the instants that they aren’t and thus make bad overall television… which makes on-demand content perhaps more worthwhile, because very few people want to watch the Earth constantly rotating two hundred miles below and whatnot. Now having a camera on the ISS as an active screensaver or desktop, that’d be interesting…
November 8th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Wow! That’s a view we haven’t seen since Apollo 17. Nice!!
Tom
November 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Super pictures. Thanks, BA
but what’s with embiggen?
Is that like enlarge?
November 8th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
what no stars? FAKE!
“In any case, a scan of old movie film doesn’t count as HD? Good movie film scanned to video can give you awesome HD video quality.”
Exactly, this is the film the used for In the Shadow of The Moon and it looked HD enough on the silver screen for me!
November 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Wow that Wow for being a student in school and the effct like that it was cool.^^
November 11th, 2007 at 10:47 am
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November 15th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
These videos will never show the NASA flags and equipment cause they never landed on the moon. Seen any recent pictures of the stuff? There are no third party pictures , only 30 year old pictures from the government, yet they can take pictures across the galaxy. It was all lies.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
wonder when we finaly can see some hd clips from kaguya?And i mean real HD.this is not hd . my new mobile phone can record in 480×270.Well if i only could figure out a way to blasting my phone into moon orbit i could get the same result myself.
I Think it would be fair to leave the public with some original stuff instead of downscaled/compressed teasers all the time.Come on Jaxa,at least give us 5sec..
March 16th, 2008 at 2:50 am
drbuzz0, the Apollo astronauts used 16 mm movie film plus 70 mm still photography in both b&w and color. All of the latter is now online, and much of it is absolutely stunning. Look at it on a large monitor, especially the assembled panoramas, and you are *there*. Go to http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/
and feast your eyes.
March 16th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
All we ever get is teased. I’ve been waiting for high quality images of the lunar surface since 1969. And we are waiting to Japan, China, etc. to provide them? Hmmmm. I just cannot understand why we cannot simply see the physical evidence of the apollo moon landings. I just don’t understand all the venom spewed at those like me who want to believe but just want to see the images. This is science, after all, not religion. We shouldn’t need “faith” to prove multiple manned missions to the moon.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I met a professional from Japan a few years ago and I told him of my dissatisfaction with NASA.
I told him how the Japanese could make money from their space program to help offset some of their costs.
I told him that the Japaneses should send small orbiting spacecraft to all of the planets and several of their moons and transmit Live HD video to an HD television station that the cable companies could include in their services. Or they could have a website of these extraterrestial LIVE HD streams.
Is this just the beginning.
I hope so.
Go JAXA / Japan!
JJ
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Has anyone seen evidence of the previous moon missions? Like the flags or the lunar landers? Is any of that seen on the videos?
Also, is it just me- or does anyone else think that the video is computer generated…it just doesn’t look real to me not that you can tell what’s real and what’s not nowadays but there’s just something off about the video.
I want to believe in the moon missions, I really do—but there’s just something about this that doesn’t sit right with me.
July 5th, 2008 at 3:45 am
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