China's Moon Rover Snaps View of Earth We Haven't Seen in 40 Years

I'll answer your question.

GR1ill3d
Off topic: Why do these topics always turn into "We never went to the moon debate"? It's getting rather old. People claiming we never made it to the moon are a funny group, and more than likely couldn't even get a job cleaning the floors at nasa, let alone try to come in these threads and act like they are some aerospace engineer. Get over yourself, go get educated and stop posting your dribble on threads not meant for that type of debate.

Wow. I hate to say it but the NASA Defenders started up with the attacks in this thread and it's all right there visible in the thread for anybody to read it.

The 3rd post in this thread contained an ad hominem attack against so-called 'moon hoax' believers. Here is that quote:

jeenyus2008 To me (imo), the people that believe the moon landings are a hoax, are a bunch of uneducated fools (not to get off topic).

And then YOU chimed in with your own personal attacks "couldn't even get a job cleaning floors at nasa...".

Thanks to you NASA Defenders for ruining another moon thread.

reply to post by jaffo


Seen the picture of the earth so i have to ask where are the stars in all of them? not sure why but the first image of the earth is rather quite unconvincing.

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter

The stars are right where they are supposed to be. I had an old camera with a fixed shutter speed about 1/60 second. I could aim that at the sky at night and the stars wouldn't show up on that camera either. You need longer exposure (and/or more sensitive recording media, or a larger lens with more light gathering capability) to see the stars. Probably if they aimed the moon rover camera at the sky and took a longer exposure, the stars would show up, but why would they do that? To convince you the lander/rover are really on the moon? My guess is, they don't really care what you think.

It sure would be nice if people could stuff their egos where the sun doesn't shine for one fugging thread and just enjoy the pictures instead of bashing & being nasty

I love these pictures. Camera quality has definitely gone up over the decades, these are spectacular! I have my own moon shots I've taken, but nothing compares to pictures of it, on it. There's a certain level of beautiful desolation to it, like the beauty in the frozen Antarctic, or the beauty of the most inhospitable deserts.

ShaeTheShaman
if you think we landed on the moon with the crap technology we had then, your sir are smoking crack. our cell phones are 100xs more powerful then the computers they had then. give me a break. If they really did, then we would be on mars by now. Its impossible, and if it is how come they never went back ?. But china sends a rover and not a man?? cause why??? its a 1 in a billion chances it will work. so please get out of here.

edit on 12-1-2014 by ShaeTheShaman because: (no reason given)

The MAIN COMPUTERS were in mission control NOT the Apollo craft DOH!!!!!

In the picture of Earth, why are there no stars?

Well gee, should have read ahead. Feel free to delete my post.

Taissa
In the picture of Earth, why are there no stars?

In this image the Earth is quite dark, which means it has had a short exposure time. This exposure time is nothing like long enough to capture a star.

The moon is the brightest thing in our night sky, but it is not as bright as the Earth is in the lunar sky (you can often see 'Earthshine' illuminating the dark parts of the lunar surface when the conditions are right). Next time you see the moon, have a look around it. Can you see stars? Try taking a photograph of the moon - do you capture stars in the photograph?

The answer to both those questions will be no.

The Earth will always present a problem to astronomy from the near side of the moon, because at the time when the lunar surface is dark, the Earth is lit - it follows the opposite phases to the moon.

ChaoticOrder
Sheesh why do they never include a link to the original gallery in these articles. Have to do everything my damn self...

have to do what yourself? "include a link to the original gallery" ?? well then, why didnt you "include a link to the original gallery" ??

What a jewel our planet is. Really. You can tell its different for the others and special.

I love that this mission and India's mission have pretty much killed the Moon Hoaxer crowd. It's about time. Very disrespectful to the men and women who made the Apollo missions happen.

ShaeTheShaman
if you think we landed on the moon with the crap technology we had then, your sir are smoking crack. our cell phones are 100xs more powerful then the computers they had then. give me a break. If they really did, then we would be on mars by now. Its impossible, and if it is how come they never went back ?. But china sends a rover and not a man?? cause why??? its a 1 in a billion chances it will work. so please get out of here.

edit on 12-1-2014 by ShaeTheShaman because: (no reason given)

A typically silly and pessimistic Hoaxer response. Hurling insults and use of hand waving are not valid arguments. And really, this rover could show you photos of every piece of Apollo equipment on the Moon and you would just say that only proves China is in on the hoax, lol.

reply to post by ShaeTheShaman


How old are you and where we're you in the 60s. Carp technology? Really? Like computers and satellite communications from Telstar ? It wasn't exactly the stone age. We went to the moon. Get over your undereducated self.

Taissa
In the picture of Earth, why are there no stars?

This has been answered many times over - stars are faint and require long exposure.

But there's a good way to see for yourself why you can't see stars in these pictures: go out on a clear night into a brightly-lit street (stand directly under a street light for better effect), look up and see if you can see any stars. Well, you might actually see 2 or 3 of the brightest stars, because street lights aren't really that bright. Now imagine that instead of the street light, you and everything around you are illuminated by the Sun - the incredibly bright, blindingly-white Sun. You can forget about the stars then.

We can blame the movies and illustrators for putting the starry backgrounds onto every space shot, even when it involves sunlit spaceships and planets or moons.

reply to post by wildespace


Or, better yet, try to take a picture of the stars you see in the sky while under the streetlights. The camera exposure time will almost certainly be too short (due to the brightness of the street-lit area around the camera) for any stars to show up in the picture -- even if it was a dark and starry night.

In the case of the Apollo astronauts' pictures (as is possibly the case of the Chinese rover), the Moon and earth are bright, and for the images to show up without being overexposed, the camera settings are similar to what would be used for daylight photography on earth -- i.e., a short exposure time. That short exposure time is not long enough for stars to show up in the images (perhaps a very bright star or planet might show up, but not for the most part).

pryingopen3rdeye

ChaoticOrder
Sheesh why do they never include a link to the original gallery in these articles. Have to do everything my damn self...

have to do what yourself? "include a link to the original gallery" ?? well then, why didnt you "include a link to the original gallery" ??

Oh FFS.
www.universetoday.com...
Could've done that with YOUR post too.

Maybe someone clever can tell me why they never take or show photos ON THE WAY to the moon or mars?

With all these unexplained 'things' whizzing around in space (you know... the ones seen around the escaped tether, and the ones seen from the ISS) you would expect there would be as many interesting images taken on the way to the destination as there were once they got to the destination.

Dont tell me that there are plenty of Hubble images because these are focused on galaxies etc millions of miles away and not on the whizzy-stuff in between us and the moon. (for example)

reply to post by qmantoo

(Not sure why you mentioned the Hubble, but it did take images of the Moon and Mars, from Earth's orbit of course. It can focus on things nearby like asteroids and comets too. The ISS is in low-earth orbit, where there's plenty of man-made stuff flying around, or it could be ice dislodged from the ammonia coolant assembly on the ISS itself.)

My guess is that there is careful consideration and planning for everything that happens during the mission. The spacecraft may not have had any camera pointed at the Moon during the flight, and even if it did, the mission control may have preferred to concentrate on the flight and any necessary checks/calibration/tests than taking fancy pictures.

The Apollo astronauts did snap the Moon while they were flying to (or from) it, check out the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.

qmantoo
Maybe someone clever can tell me why they never take or show photos ON THE WAY to the moon or mars?

With all these unexplained 'things' whizzing around in space (you know... the ones seen around the escaped tether, and the ones seen from the ISS) you would expect there would be as many interesting images taken on the way to the destination as there were once they got to the destination.

Dont tell me that there are plenty of Hubble images because these are focused on galaxies etc millions of miles away and not on the whizzy-stuff in between us and the moon. (for example)

I think you've kind of answered your own question - the things you talk about were photographed and or filmed, but they aren't in 'cislunar' space (if you're talking about between here and the moon) - they're in orbit around the Earth. You're assuming there are loads of things whizzing around in space, when they are in fact whizzing around just above us and there are already things there to photograph that.

Occasionally you do get probes going elsewhere taking photos of Earth looking back, but for the most part they don't and I think the reason is mainly protective and practical. The aim of a lunar or martian probe is to observe its target up close. To do that they need to get there, and that's the focus of the mission's first phase: you get to your target, then you deploy your instruments and the hardware designed to power them.

If you start opening your shutters to take tourist snaps, you risk exposing your expensive and sensitive instruments to potential damage from some of the small rocks and particles that actually are whizzing around in space. You would also have to consider the power needs of pointing the probe in the right direction and firing up the cameras and associated hardware to send the images back - would this drain your resources more than you've budgeted for?

You can take a look at the OP image and judge whether there is any operational justification for such photographs. A small Earth in a black sky. Point the camera anywhere else and you have nothing. Apart from the wow factor, does this actually show us anything worth while? Personally I think the wow factor is worth it, but a mission planner working to a timeline and having to conserve resources on the way to somewhere else might think differently.

reply to post by jaffo


First of all, congratulations to the Chinese. I hope their countrymen (and women) are proud of this feat.

Secondly, I won't use this opportunity to discuss theories. It is a technological achievement regardless.