‘World's highest resolution' lunar images released
China recently released a set of “world's highest resolution” lunar
images taken by its second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, as it braces to
launch its next mission to land a rover to explore its surface.
China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for
National Defence (SASTIND) recently published a set of full coverage map
of the Moon and its images with a resolution of seven meters captured
by Chang'e-2.
The map and images are the world's highest-resolution lunar images ever
published that cover all of the moon, state runs Xinhua news agency
quoted Liu Dongkui, deputy chief commander of China's lunar probe
project.
Stereo camera used
The images were photographed by a charge-coupled device (CCD) stereo
camera on Chang'e-2 from the heights of 100 km and 15 km over the lunar
surface between October 2010 and May 2011, the SASTIND statement said.
The resolution of the images obtained from Chang'e-2 is 17 times finer than those taken by its predecessor Chang'e-1.
If there were airports and harbours on the moon, the Chang'e-1 could
just identify them while Chang'e-2 could detect the planes or ships in
them, Tong Qingxi, academician with the Institute of Remote Sensing
Applications of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.
The scientists also made some adjustments to the original data to more
accurately reflect the topographic and geomorphologic features of the
moon, a statement by SASTIND said.
The scientists have produced 746 moon pictures with the resolution of
seven meters, and the total volume of data is about 800 GB, the
statement said.
Chang'e-2, named after the mythical Moon Goddess is still in orbit and
drifted to the second Lagrange Point (L2) in space more than 1.5 million
kms away from Earth after completing its moon mission.
According to the new road map China plans to launch a third moon
mission, Chang'e-3 to deploy rovers to explore the lunar surface besides
sending a probe to Mars next year and to Venus by 2015. It is also in
the process of setting up its own manned space station and a Global
Position System of its own.
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