Brad Pitt... 
and I agree!
Posted on 12/03/2007 2:49:51 AM PST by JACKRUSSELL
(BEIJING) - China has dismissed Internet gossip that its first photo of the moon taken from a lunar orbiter might have been plagiarised from NASA, local media said on Monday.
The country launched its first lunar probe, the Chang'e 1, in October and released a photo featuring a patch of grey moon surface splotched with craters last week, hailing the mission as a "complete success".
But some Chinese Internet users have questioned its originality after comparing it with an almost identical lunar image from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2005.
"There is absolutely no forgery," Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for the lunar probe, told the Beijing News.
The Chinese and U.S. lunar images looked similar only because they had aimed at the same area of the moon's southern hemisphere, Ouyang was quoted as saying.
"But a careful examination will tell some small differences," Ouyang said. There were two craters on a certain spot of the Chinese photo, but there was only one on that same spot of the American picture, the Beijing News quoted him as saying.
"Maybe it's because the resolution of the American photo was not high enough, or a new pit might have been generated by an asteroid hitting the moon between 2005 and 2007," Ouyang said.
"I understand the doubts of the Internet surfers. They hope the Chinese lunar probe can do well so they don't want the photo to turn out to be fake," he said.
A three-dimensional image of the moon surface taken by the Chang'e 1 was released on Sunday and some data collected by the satellite would be shared with the public, the Beijing News said.
China has an ambitious space programme, eyeing its scientific and military benefits as well as domestic political gains from its boost to patriotism.
In 2003, China became only the third country to put a man into space using its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the United States. It then sent two astronauts on a five-day flight on its Shenzhou VI mission in October 2005.
It plans to launch a third manned mission, Shenzhou VII, into space next year which would involve a space walk.
Other Asian powers have also announced lunar plans. Japan launched its first lunar satellite in September and India plans one in 2008.
And I can read the headline: “Moon Pie Fight in the Mars Bar”.
Some of the rubbish posted here reminds me of a joke. After working many years as a journalist in Beijing, a Chinese man returned to his home village to visit his relatives. He showed them a photograph of the late U.S. President Nixon who visited China in 1972. All the relatives of the Chinese journalist claimed that the photo was a fake because Nixon did not look like Mao Zedong, or rather, Nixon did not look like a Chinese.
The journalist’s home village was situated in a remote part of western China where the people had never seen a white foreigner in their lives. To them, Nixon was an alien from the outer space.
In order to convince them, the Chinese journalist took out a Beijing newspaper that published the news of Nixon’s China visit. He pointed to a photo of Nixon in the newspaper and asked them to compare it with his photo. However, the villagers accused him of trying to hoodwink them by publishing a fake photo in the newspaper. They argued that both photos were created by him because they looked alike even though the photo in the newspaper showed a smiling face while the journalist’s photo showed a solemn-looking face.
By now, most of those villagers should have gone to heaven or hell. If you happen to pass by their graves at night, you may still hear them arguing about the fake photos.
Made in Taiwan or made on the Chinese mainland? The Chinese character for “guo”(nation)is not the simplified form of Chinese used on the mainland.
Perhaps you can show us how to photoshop copy and paste a chimney on the roof of the White House. After that, you may get many calls from some big companies to create fake images.
Brad Pitt... and I agree!
The angle of the shadows in the craters in the upper right of the photos indicate the two are NOT the same photograph or that the two were taken some time apart from one another, as the shadow angle has a 5-7 degree variation.
Haha, thanks for bringing back this memory. I had to watch this for my film class...interesting to see how they got to the moon by blasting themselves in a huge cannon.
I’ll believe it when they bring back moon dust contaminated with lead...
Instead of blasting the astronauts to the moon in a huge cannon, the following article in the website http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2003/10/15/china_puts_its_first_man_in_space/ reveals that a more modern method had been attempted long ago — literally rocketing to the moon! Excerpts follow:
(Begin excerpts)
.....President Hu Jintao was at the launch center to watch China’s bid to realize a dream that has a long history. A crater on the moon is named after a mythical Chinese explorer, Wan Hu, who, according to legend, died after strapping 47 rockets to a chair in an ill-fated attempt to reach the heavens. China’s program to reach the moon is code-named Chang’e, after a mythical fairy who traveled to the moon after mistakenly eating medicine that made her fly..... (End excerpts)
Thanks - very interesting article. Along with the better camera used by the Chicoms - It seems to me that the lighting angle of the new photos also is a huge aid in providing better definition of the features.
The China photos are not faked. The shadow angles are different between the two photos, and the resolution goes down towards the edges of the China photos (a common occurance in space optics — you can’t afford to send many “correcting” elements due to mass).
:’)
US trailing China in military space race
OneNewsNow | 2-1-07 | Chad Groening
Posted on 02/01/2007 9:34:23 PM EST by DeweyCA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1777725/posts
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