Moonies

July 20, 2005 12:36 AM

Google Moon - Google Maps gets the Lunar treatment, in honor of the first manned moon landing. No directions, though, so you won't be able to plot the best route from Tycho Crater to Mare Imbrium. (Fun Hint! - try the maximum zoom level)
posted by nervestaple (41 comments total)

Anybody ever notice all those little round marks on the moon? I wonder what they are?
posted by lacus at 12:51 AM on July 20, 2005

I zoomed all the way, now I am hungry!
posted by lee at 12:56 AM on July 20, 2005

lame joke, but I can't wait for a Google Solar System done like Google Earth
posted by Grod at 12:58 AM on July 20, 2005

"Giant lava lamps filled with biomass suspended in seawater generate oxygen for the complex"

They go to a lot of trouble and a number of pages with the Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.). Don't these people actually work?
posted by peacay at 1:10 AM on July 20, 2005

If Microsoft did stuff like this, people wouldn't think they're so evil.
posted by Rothko at 1:19 AM on July 20, 2005

What, Paperclip and Bob weren't not-evil enough for you?
posted by loquacious at 1:21 AM on July 20, 2005

Bob was the greatest!
posted by TwelveTwo at 1:45 AM on July 20, 2005

Hey Grod... Try this:

Celestia... The free space simulation
posted by Mr Ed at 1:56 AM on July 20, 2005

I can't wait for saturn.google.com so I can find Sun Ra's house!
posted by fandango_matt at 1:58 AM on July 20, 2005

G.C.H.E.E.S.E is recruiting.
posted by bap98189 at 2:10 AM on July 20, 2005

They need to recruit a sketch writer.
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:25 AM on July 20, 2005

I can't wait for saturn.google.com so I can find Sun Ra's house!

I went over to see Sun Ra a few times. He was pretty far out there.
posted by lelilo at 3:11 AM on July 20, 2005

I sent them an email at the address they listed, but the message was returned with an "address doesn't exist" error. Anyone else try sending them email?
posted by Rothko at 4:23 AM on July 20, 2005

I'd like to point out that Selenographia has been around for quite some time.
posted by sciurus at 5:03 AM on July 20, 2005

Looks like the Arizona desert to me.
posted by beagle at 5:22 AM on July 20, 2005

If you zoom out all the way you can see it's just the lunar landing vicinity pasted together three times. I was wondering how they would have managed the dark side.
posted by nervousfritz at 5:34 AM on July 20, 2005

Try zooming all the way in, nervousfritz
posted by PlusDistance at 5:37 AM on July 20, 2005

That's no moon...
posted by i_cola at 5:52 AM on July 20, 2005

This is cool. I've just been rereading Red Mars, and marvelling at how detailed Robinson is about what it's like to actually be on Mars. He must have spent just hours reading charts and imagining before writing. This reminds me a little of that, except for the green cheese part.
posted by OmieWise at 6:16 AM on July 20, 2005

that's cheesy....
posted by Jikido at 6:21 AM on July 20, 2005

That's really awesome!

And on a random side-note: My best friend was just hired by Google as a product manager! I rule by proxy!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:27 AM on July 20, 2005

nervousfritz, the dark side, otherwise known as the far side of the moon isn't actually dark. It's just pointing away from us, and enjoys just as much light as the side we see from Earth. It was first photographed in 1959, and the Lunar Orbiter misisons in the 60s mapped 99% of the moon's surface in up to 1 meter resolution (comparable to Google Maps/Earth resolution). In fact, that's probably where Google Moon's data came from. You are right, though, that it is lame that it's just the area around the Apollo landings. The data is out there for the whole moon, why not use it?
posted by zsazsa at 8:40 AM on July 20, 2005

how long are days/nights on the moon? and seasons?
posted by foraneagle2 at 9:07 AM on July 20, 2005

isn't actually dark

Duhhhh, :o) thanks for the update zsazsa. . .
posted by nervousfritz at 9:16 AM on July 20, 2005

As a matter of fact it's all dark.
posted by swift at 9:24 AM on July 20, 2005

Cool, but why cheese?
posted by Sonic_Molson at 9:46 AM on July 20, 2005

That's cute. Thanks for the headsup, nervestaple.

And thanks to Mr Ed too for the link to Celestia. Between that and Noctis I will get very little done in the near future.
posted by LeeJay at 9:47 AM on July 20, 2005

foraneagle2: The moon is "tide-locked" to the earth---the same side always faces our planet. This means that it spins on its axis in exactly the same time that it takes to rotate the planet: a lunar month, or 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds. So night on the moon lasts about a fortnight.

The moon does have seasons, it orbits at an angle to the solar ecliptic (the plane of the solar system), but again, it does the transit in a lunar month, so spring is morning and fall, twilight, if you will.
posted by bonehead at 10:19 AM on July 20, 2005

Mr Ed, Celestia crashed my Mac Mini (10.4.2) hard. Twice.
posted by pmbuko at 10:52 AM on July 20, 2005

I was kinda hoping that I could zoom out and see the whole thing, but they only have 3 tiles, which seem to be duplicates of each other. I have an old National Geographic Moon Map I could send them to scan.
posted by Four Flavors at 10:58 AM on July 20, 2005

For those wondering why it's not green:

Thank you for your note about Google Moon. We hope you enjoyed today's
tribute, and we appreciate your taking the time to contact us.

This is an autoresponse to let you know that we've received your email,
and we'll read it soon. If you notified us of a problem, we'll investigate
right away and follow up with you if we can provide assistance.

If you sent praise, we're happy to hear that you enjoyed surfing the lunar
landscape and hope to provide you with more extensive Moon-oriented local
information just 64 years from now. We'll also keep constructive feedback
and suggestions - we know, you'd like to see Mars, too - in mind for the
future.

If you're wondering what type of cheese the moon is made of, we wish we
could tell you. Conventional 20th century belief suggested that it was
made of green cheese, but recent data has disproved this theory. Diligent
research by the world's most preeminent scientists suggests that it's
either havarti or gouda. We recognize that a sniff-off among our talented
Google users would likely resolve these scientific disputes, so we're
working on patented scratch-and-sniff technology. You didn't hear it from
us, but if you get close enough to your monitor, you may be able to
discern the cheese by smell.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Regards,
The Google Team

posted by dmd at 12:03 PM on July 20, 2005

I think it's very lame this is not the whole moon.
posted by smackfu at 1:16 PM on July 20, 2005

We like the MOOON!
posted by obloquy at 2:09 PM on July 20, 2005

Havarti or Gouda?? Neither one has those holes, that's Swiss! And yellow is usually associated with a colored Chedder. It's no cheese with which I'm familiar, although it looks suspiciously like this.
The question is, who's UNDER that hat???
posted by Floydd at 2:09 PM on July 20, 2005

I'm amused by the comments reading "lame - where's the rest of the moon?"

Hell, my street isn't on Google Maps with adequate resolution, give them a break - let them finish the earth before moving on to other celestial bodies. At least they're working on it. I think it's fascinating.
posted by odinsdream at 2:36 PM on July 20, 2005

What???? No Saturn????
posted by The Deej at 3:46 PM on July 20, 2005

I'm still looking for Ignignokt and Err.
posted by nervestaple at 7:28 PM on July 20, 2005

Awww. Google's so cute and cuddly.
posted by sellout at 9:08 PM on July 20, 2005

swift, excellent Pink Floyd reference
posted by lacus at 11:37 PM on July 20, 2005

The "green" in "green cheese" doesn't mean it's colored green. It means "green" as in fresh or unaged.
posted by kindall at 10:11 AM on July 21, 2005

The map doesn't have a scale, so I'm not clear on how far apart those landing sites are.
posted by RobotHero at 10:42 AM on July 21, 2005