MetaFilter posts tagged with moon and earth

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

The Whole Earth Photolog

Rhaomi — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:34:54 -0800

From grainy stills to gorgeous high-resolution portraits, from intimate pairings to stark contrasts, and from old standbys to little-known surprises, The Planetary Society's Earth galleries offer a rich collection of stunning photography and video footage of our world as seen from both planetary spacecraft and geostationary satellites. It is a vista that has inspired many a deep thought in the lucky few that have seen it firsthand [previously]. Oh, and the rest of the Solar System is pretty neat, too.

Blowing up the universe.

blahblahblah — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:41:18 -0800

How to blow up the Earth (with a coffee can), and why we should, along with some discussion of how it is done in fiction. Blowing up the moon (and how the US nearly did in 1958, with the help of Carl Sagan), and lots of reasons why, including one in song [YouTube]. How to blow up a star. How we might accidentally blow up the universe in November. [prev. discussion of Earth destruction]

Earth from Mars

aladfar — Thu, 22 May 2003 12:21:11 -0800

Pale Blue Dot: The Earth and Moon as photographed from Mars. Just in case you needed a bit of perspective.

thijsk — Mon, 12 Aug 2002 12:43:52 -0800

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?. Bad idea, said Jules. Great idea, says NASA.

crunchland — Wed, 24 Jan 2001 07:38:41 -0800

If you want to try playing with little planets or images of them, try visiting these websites...

Webearth -- builds a LIVE vrml model of the Earth as it is right now. It draws from current composite satellite photos. Or you can play with a VRML Moon, Venus, Mars or Jupiter, if you'd prefer. (Note: this site does require a VRML 2.0 compatible plug-in, like Parallel Graphics Cortona VRML Viewer.)

Here's an oldie, but a goodie... Same concept, just not live. Earth and Moon Viewer uses various static composite satellite images from many different points of view, and it lets you zoom in and out ... (to a certain extent).

Webwide World lets you zoom in on an earth-like planet... not quite the same thrill, but the images the site produces are beautifully gem-like. And the planet it produces is huge. You'll be able explore islands off the coasts of islands off the coasts of islands.

And for more satellite image zooming pleasure, you can't beat Microsoft's Terra Server.