New English Narration on Japan's Spectacular HDTV Kaguya Footage February 8, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Japan, Youtube , trackback
Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has posted on one of their Youtube channels two HD videos from their Kaguya lunar orbiter’s mission, with new English narration.
The videos are not embeddable, but can be found linked below:
- Earth-rise: Video of one of the more spectacular elements of the lunar environment, the Earth rising over the horizon on the far side of the moon.
- West edge of Oceanus Procellarum: A northernly trek over the western edge of what is by far the largest mare on the Moon (“Ocean of Storms“). Oceanus Procellarum was the landing site for Apollo 12–which, appropiately enough for a mission to the ‘Ocean of Storms’, had the rocket carrying the mission hit by lightning shortly after launch.
The Kaguya lunar orbiter (also known as SELENE) took the footage in 2007, with these new narrations posted just last week.
These videos were a significant first drop in the pond for lunar HD video—a key element of the Google Lunar X PRIZE‘s $20 million payout is successful broadcast of HD video from the surface (a “mooncast”), and HD streams and other video could become both common and in-demand within 3-6 years. JAXA’s videos are an opening act for what should be an avalanche of astounding imagery over the next decade that’ll have each of us feeling that much closer to standing on the Moon, just as everyone from Armstrong and Aldrin to Schmitt and beyond has done :)
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[...] lunar orbiters send back important initial data, ranging from images and video to mapping (especially of all-important helium-3 content) and testing for water ice deep in [...]
[...] Kaguya has already made its mark on history with its HDTV video of the moon–check out the new English narrations of some of their more spectacular videos, as well as their wealth of additional Japanese-language [...]