Astronomy Picture of the Day -- A Colorful Moon

NASA ^ | December 19, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: The Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or yellow. But small, measurable color differences have been greatly exaggerated to make this telescopic, multicolored, moonscape captured during the Moon's full phase. The different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface. Blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. The familiar Sea of Tranquility, or Mare Tranquillitatis, is the blue area in the upper right corner of the frame. White lines radiate across the orange-hued southern lunar highlands from 85 kilometer wide ray crater Tycho at bottom left. Above it, darker rays from crater Copernicus extend into the Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium) at the upper left. Calibrated by rock samples from the Apollo missions, similar multicolor images from spacecraft have been used to explore the Moon's global surface composition.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit & Copyright: László Francsics]

[wastedyears]

Awesome

[SunkenCiv]

• Smack! A New Crater Appears on the Moon/ Yutu Rover Update
• Is the Solar System Really a Vortex?

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[wastedyears]

Sunken, could you add me to this ping list? Do you have any more that are science related?

[Telepathic Intruder]

The color differences in Lunar terrain are too suble for the human eye to distinguish, but Alan Bean's paintings typically show the Lunar surface in full color. Maybe some of it registers on a subconscious level when actually looking at it close up.

[huldah1776]

A while back I looked at the moon and wondered what the chances were that it would have a man’s face on it. One of things we live with that is constant and culturally universal. pun intended. God does love kids and as kids we love the moon with the face smiling at us. Wonderful picture.

[fruser1]

The colored view would depend on the tint of the visor.

[Telepathic Intruder]

But still a mono-color, not reds, greens, and blues. The moon’s crust is mostly silica and alumina, lacking less variation in color than our eyes can detect.

[left that other site]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wuli]

I noticed that the color blue was coded for
titanium deposits on the Moon and a thought
occurred to me -

small changes can have big affects over time

if we ever start mining operations on the moon

I bet we will try to deliver payloads of a weight

equal to the payload of material we remove

or else the subtle changes in the gravitational

weight of the moon will likely, though slowly,

affect its orbit, and that will affect many

things on earth for which the Moon’s gravity

plays some influencing role, no matter how minor

[MrB]

I see your point, but you also have to consider that the moon has been struck many times and the material/mass stuck to it - so it has changed weight over time as well.

[GATOR NAVY]

But it’s not culturally universal. If you ask my Japanese wife what she sees on the moon, she will tell you a rabbit making mochi. I don’t see it, but she and a billion+ Japanese, Chinese and Koreans do.

[huldah1776]

I’ll have to look up mochi!

[Wuli]

“I see your point, but you also have to consider that the moon has been struck many times and the material/mass stuck to it - so it has changed weight over time as well.”

I agree and accept your point.

and given the article here:

http://www.space.com/3373-earth-moon-destined-disintegrate.html

I am left wondering if what you mention has contributed, over time, to what science says is a definite gradual change in the moon’s orbit, and if the answer to that question is “yes” then, in a reversal of my original concern, then whether or not human mining operations might counteract the affects of all the material being added to the moon constantly by asteriod strikes on it.

[MrB]

Isn’t it absolutely glorious that God put a shield up for the earth?
Cool also that the moon has “stacked functions”.
I’m going to miss some, and some are unknown to all, but
it shields the earth from strikes
it stabilizes the earth’s spin
it provides tidal effects
it keeps the earth’s core molten by causing movement of the interior and the plates
did you know that the perfect relative size of the moon to the sun allowed us to verify Einstein’s relativity theory experimentally?
bunches more...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Privileged-Planet-Designed-Discovery/dp/0895260654