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China Has Released True Color HD Photos of the Moon
- speeder 11y agoThose look cool! Also I wonder, if someone ever release HD pictures of the stuff the manned landings left behind, will people stop believing that moon landing was a Hoax?
- FreedomToCreate 11y agoDoubt it. They would just say that the One World Order elites have done this to trick us even more.
- colinbartlett 11y agoSince there is already overwhelming evidence to demonstrate to factual moon landings, I doubt adding any more will persuade the hold outs.
- api 11y agoFor some it's a "protest belief." Few really believe Apollo was a hoax, but many more say so as a way of saying f u to the near cancellation of the space program and the general direction away from visionary things the country took since then.
- pgwhalen 11y agoDo you have any evidence to support this theory? Certainly seems like the deniers believe it for real.
- api 11y agoI was personally told this once, and I also extrapolate it a bit from insight into the differences that often exist between actual and stated beliefs and how the latter serve more for social signaling. I generally find literalist interpretations of belief shallow.
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoI don't know what it is, but I've seen more and more moon hoax and flat earth stuff on the Internet today than I recall in the past. Perhaps it's observation bias, but it seems like it's more prevalent today than ever before.
- hellofunk 11y agoThat's because those crackers are finally learning how to use the Internet.
- mikeash 11y agoApparently some famous rapper went public with his Flat Earth beliefs recently: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/26/entertainment/rapper-bob-earth-flat-theory/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/26/entertainment/rapper-bob-e... That seems to be what all the fuss is about.
- _nedR 11y agoI think it is unfair to compare moon hoax theories (which intuitively make sense) to flat-earth theories (which can be intuitively disproven by anyone taking a flight on an airplane).
- yincrash 11y agoThere are already laser retroreflectors on the moon that a sufficiently powerful laser and sensor can detect. This is still not enough for people to stop believing it's a hoax.
- burningion 11y agoI realize we're all trying to make fun of a strawman who doesn't believe in the purity of science, but that's an unfair characterization of the arguments made against the manned lunar landing. Just taking a look at the Wikipedia page for the arguments gives you a good idea for the arguments made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theori... If you read through a bit, you'll see a few arguments that people propose, that don't refute laser reflectors being on the surface. Again, I realize we're supposed to be piling on a strawman here, but I hope we can all maintain open minds.
- standeven 11y agoThe retroreflectors were placed by manned lunar landings.
- 2muchcoffeeman 11y agoMaintain open minds about the conspiracy theorists? What do I gain by entertaining crazy wrong ideas? Other than practise in refuting crazy ideas.
- Almaviva 11y agoRefuting crazy ideas is something extremely important, imo, especially if they are widely held. But you have to refute the best possible version of the argument (if there is one), not a straw man weakened version. The "strongest" version is that we have landed many spacecraft on the moon (placing mirrors, artifacts, etc), but the human part was staged. I think a Chinese photo of clear and obvious _human_ presense on the moon actually would be a big deal as far as putting all the craziness to bed.
- nacs 11y ago> will people stop believing that moon landing was a Hoax No, they'll just think China made replicas of the original items and placed them on the moon to be photographed as part of a global conspiracy.
- AI_Overlord 11y agoAnd if you actually took them there and showed them the objects they will claim that those were put there after the fact. They will acknowledge that now we can go to the moon, but back then it was all fake.
- qb45 11y agoAlmost nailed it. They'll say China made replicas and photographed them in studio, just as the original Apollo photos had been fabricated.
- _nedR 11y agoDo moon-landing hoax theorists believe that all landings were faked? Or just the original Apollo 11 landings.
- mitchtbaum 11y agoHard to speak generally over a large audience. I bet one qualification most would ask for would be that it come from a trustworthy, 3rd party's telescope or satellite. That could certainly sway many doubters. Out of curiosity, which pieces of evidence did you find compelling or how did you come to trust its source?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- scrollaway 11y agoNothing, except #2 on the front page in less than an hour? Let's ignore that. Gotta complain about unrelated Musk for whatever reason.
- matt-attack 11y agoLooks remarkably similar to the old black & white photos.
- Avshalom 11y agoActually a lot of the old photos were color. Thats the problem with the moon: grey on grey landscape.
- monochromatic 11y ago> Actually a lot of the old photos were color. Couldn't help thinking of this: http://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/calvin-asks-dad-about-old-black-and.html http://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/c...
- rcthompson 11y agoIt's kind of weird seeing crystal clear HD pictures of space objects. I think we just associate blurry black & white images with space, since most of the probes that we have currently exploring other planets and moons were launched before it was practical to include full-color HD cameras (and/or the requisite data transmission capacity) on space probes. (Similar to how people subjectively prefer 24 FPS for feature films.)
- teekert 11y agoYes, very unreal! It would be absolutely great if they release quality video or VR material!
- lfam 11y agoThe wonderful movie For All Mankind [0], from 1989, features high quality footage of the Apollo moon landings and a beautiful score by Brian Eno. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind
- Animats 11y agoThere was better video once. The original public pictures came from pointing a broadcast TV camera at a slow-scan monitor, which is why they're so crappy. Better data was recorded at the tracking stations, directly from the downlink. Those tapes were archived. Efforts were made recently to find them. It now appears that when NASA had a shortage of 1" tape in the 1980s, the tapes were reused for Landsat imagery.[1] [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.p...
- kristofferR 11y agoYou're forgetting about the other Apollo landing missions. The later ones have fantastic color video footage, remastered in full HD for episode 4 of the fantastic documentary series When We Left Earth. The whole 6 part documentary series are worth watching for anyone remotely interested in space, but here's a small sample of the quality of the moon landing video footage: https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv
- jetskindo 11y agoAm I the only one who,can never read tech crunch on mobile because it looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/OCQbcnL.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OCQbcnL.jpg
- manaskarekar 11y agoPerhaps this might work better? http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/01281656-fun-with-a-new-data-set-change.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/0128165...
- hutattedonmyarm 11y agoWorks fine for me, with or without adblocker
- stordoff 11y agoIs that on Andorid? It was working fine for me on Windows 10 Phone/Microsoft Edge, but I've seen other sites mess up in similar ways on Edge.
- bla2 11y agoWorks for for me on Android (chrome)
- reddotX 11y agoworks fine on Ubuntu Phone
- matt_kantor 11y agoI have the same issue, Chrome 47 on Android. It's their damn "read more" button. If I rotate to portrait I'm able to tap the button to unbreak the page.
- cpeterso 11y agoI see the same problem reading TechCrunch on any iOS browser: Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. Doesn't anyone at TechCrunch use iOS?
- perseusprime11 11y agoIsn't moon black and white. What's the point of color pictures?
- whelp 11y agoIf the pictures aren't in colors how do you know the moon is black and white?
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoI can see why someone might assume that, but there's a bit if coloration in the rocks(see the pictures).
- dng88 11y agoShe is goddess on the moon, not of the moon. For both the lady who stole the drug from her husband or the vehicle.
- muddyrivers 11y agoHere is the story of Chang'e and Houyi, for the curious. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_Stories/Houyi_and_Chang%27e https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_Stories/Houyi_and_Chan...
- frostburg 11y agoThose are interesting, but the quality doesn't really seems to improve much, if at all, from the 70mm analog pictures taken with Hasselblads during the manned missions.
- mattbettinson 11y agoI believe that was 120 film. And yes - those looked incredible.
- KaiserPro 11y ago120mm is about 6000 x 6000 pixels. (depending on film stock.) 36 megapixels. which is >> than the 2megapixels of HD
- frostburg 11y agoIt was Ektachrome, E-3 process. All in all 36 mp of actual detail from those photos might be a bit optimistic, considering the harsh conditions (note that modern 36mp digital cameras don't reach 36mp of actual detail either, for various reasons, first of all bayer interpolation), but on second look these new ones are crummy. The amount of chroma noise is startling.
- ekianjo 11y agoYou can go much higher than that. Medium format for example is considered to be between 60 to 80 megapixels.
- frostburg 11y agoNot really; I actually own a film Hasselblad, I'm somewhat familiar with the issues. You can get really impressive figures by using film meant for document reproduction to shoot high contrast test targets, but this doesn't really translate to high resolution for real subjects. There are also significant problems with alignment, film planarity, grain (detail can still be gleaned even after grain starts being visible, but the signal to noise ratio gets progressively worse) etc. that further reduce theoretical resolution. For that kind of detail you need at least 4x5 inch large format.
- KaiserPro 11y agoChina releases "true colour HD images of the moon" Clicks link Sees animated gif of said images facepalm
- Flow 11y agoHere's one of the pics in high resolution: https://i.imgur.com/9dfK0pK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/9dfK0pK.jpg
- rplnt 11y agoWhat kind of rock is that?
- sjwright 11y agoMoon rock[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock
- abecedarius 11y agoImpact ejecta, according to http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/01281656-fun-with-a-new-data-set-change.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/0128165...
- baltcode 11y agoThe impact ejecta rock (pyramid rock) looks like there are lines. Are those lines from erosion or sedimentation layers? I thought neither of these would happen without an atmosphere or water.
- Achshar 11y agoErosion does happen on the moon but from solar radiation instead.
- qb45 11y agoIt's amazing that there is just so much of junk rock flying all over the place and landing there.
- lacoolj 11y agoEven in something like a moon landing with space and power limitations, it's 2016. We have the technology to take video and at least store it and upload it later. There is no real reason these couldn't be an HD video instead (or in addition to).
- akavel 11y agoQuoting a fragment of the last paragraph: "With [...] private companies planning to profit off of lunar resources, the moon is about to become a much busier destination." Are there really such plans? Can anybody explain what the article refers to here specifically?
- chm 11y agoI know this doesn't add much to the discussion, but it would be surprising if there weren't plans to profit from anything related to the Moon.
- bostonpete 11y agoWell, you can apparently buy land on the moon for as little as $30 an acre...! http://www.lunarlandowner.com/standard_gift_package_details.htm http://www.lunarlandowner.com/standard_gift_package_details....
- Symmetry 11y agoSure, for instance ULA has plans to mine the moon for propellant. Here's the short version but you can google "Cislunar 1000" for more. https://imgur.com/a/473uB https://imgur.com/a/473uB
- jkaljundi 11y agoFor example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton_Energy_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton_Energy_Company and http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6865 http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6865
- hellotoby 11y agoI made a quick VR version of the panorama* (using aframe.io) if anyone's interested. http://tobyvervaart.com.au/moon/ http://tobyvervaart.com.au/moon/ * caveats: probably not to the correct scale
- Mizza 11y agoBeat me to it! :D
- coin 11y ago-1 for techcrunch.com website I'd love to pinchzoom on the photos, but techcrunch has disabled it
- sergiotapia 11y agoGoes to show how absolutely fearless, or better yet brave, the men and women who fly into space are. Look at that pitch black sky, it gave me the willies. It must do something to the psyche of the average person for sure.
- raldi 11y agoThe sky's not actually pitch black on the moon; you just need to use a very short exposure on lunar-landing photos or else you overexpose the surface.
- Paul_S 11y agoAnother possible reaction to the infinite void: "They saw the staggering jewels of the night in their infinite dust and their minds sang with fear. For a while they flew on, motionless against the starry sweep of the Galaxy, itself motionless against the infinite sweep of the Universe. And then they turned round. “It’ll have to go,” the men of Krikkit said as they headed back for home. On the way back they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms." Life, the Universe and Everything
- sandworm101 11y agoTitle suggestion: not of the moon, but from the moon. Credit where due. This isn't footage from afar, but from something standing on the moon.
- NelsonMinar 11y agoThree cheers for Emily Lakdawalla and the Planetary Society. They do amazing work making this kind of astronomy accessible and understandable to the general public.