January 26, 2012
Credits: NASA-Apollo 17 Crew - NASA/JPL/NSSDC - Credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Marco Faccin/Lunar Explorer Italia/IPF
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Today's IPF-LXTT APOD is dedicated, again, to the Men of Apollo 17 and their Lunar adventure. The subject of this image-mosaic is the Lunar Crater "Shorty", which became famous for its colors - going from a light and pale gray/blue, to a very dark orange/red. Colors that should remind us that the Moon, our Moon, is far from being just a "Gray Desert", as it might seem to a distracted observer. Actually, far from it! And to better describe the scene you are watching, we decided to let the Astronauts who went there to tell us what they saw and how they told it to Mission Control... 145:48:37 Cernan: (Looking West) Hey, Bob, from where I am, (I can look at a place) about 100 meters around the West Side of the Rim of this Crater (where) the mantle on the inside of the Rim turns from this gray material we've been sampling, in here, to a very dark gray material. And there's a lot of orange stuff that goes down - radially down - into the Pit of the Crater. [Schmitt - "A first-rate observation."]145:49:03 Parker: Okay. Copy that. Outstanding! 145:49:08 Schmitt: Hey, Bob, those cores didn't feel like the follower went down at all. 145:49:14 Parker: Okay. 145:49:15 Schmitt: Shouldn't it have gone a little bit? 145:49:17 Parker: Not necessarily, if it's pretty compact stuff. You were having a hard time getting it in. 145:49:24 Schmitt: Well, I thought there was a little space up there, but maybe I just didn't feel it. 145:49:27 Parker: Not very much... 145:49:28 Schmitt: I don't think there's much danger of them coming apart.
This frame has been colorized in Absolute Natural Colors by (such as the colors that a human eye would actually perceive if someone were near the Lunar Shorty Crater and then looked around, by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team. |
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