Moon goodness: Far side of Luna in full colour

If you enjoy scanning your eyes over the magnificent curves and craters of our planet's closest companion, then you'll probably love this lush high res stereo image of the far side of the Moon recently uploaded to the net by a team at the Arizona State University. The farside of the moon, credit LROC The farside of the moon …

[batfastad]

Cool

Pretty cool actually.

I had no idea the surface of the moon had such elevation extremes, going from -9000 at the bottom of the "ocean" to +10000m. That's similar to earth... -10902m to +8848m. In fact going off wikipedia and the scale shown in the bottom left of the pic, the moon has a bigger elevation range (that side of it at least) by 138m.

How have they worked out the elevation of 0m "sea level" on the moon?

Anyone know the actual lowest and highest points on the moon's surface?

Alien icon because they are there but too small to see at max zoom of the image.

[Mike Flugennock]

Lunar "sea level"?

"How have they worked out the elevation of 0m "sea level" on the moon?"

Huh, wow. I've been thinking about that, too. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that it involved some radar imaging and establishing "sea level" based on the mare/lava basin which reads as farthest from the radar. Mind you, this is totally a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess).

Some commenters on this forum:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-504894.html

...are suggesting the Apollo 11 site at the Sea Of Tranquillity is established as "sea level". No definite answer there, though.

[Swarthy]

"Sea" Level

The Earth and mood have something else in common: "sea level" isn't. The oceans here are not, in fact always at sea level. There's some weird stuf about gravity and air preassure that makes sea level variable.

The solution to this, and to the lunar (mare level?) is Height Above Ellipsoid: take the whole shape and figure out the shape as if the whole thing had been sanded down smooth. the height above (or below) this imagininary ellipsoid is you elevation.

[Gordan]

Clearly fake

These images are clearly fake - they aren't showing the nazi base.

[Alister]

@Gordan

Damn, you beat me to it.

I was going to ask which bit was the secret Russian base...

[Anonymous Coward]

or

the toast king, let alone insanity prawn boy.

[alwarming]

In Soviet Russia

the far side of the moon sees you in full colour.

[Elmer Phud]

or

the London bus

[Dan Paul]

Which one's Pink?

Ah, if only poor Syd could have seen this image.......

[Mike Flugennock]

re: which one's Pink?

D'aah, damn. Somebody beat me to the Pink Floyd reference.

I think Syd may have already seen this long ago, if you know what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iA7wdO00VI

All that you touch, and all that you see, etc. etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't the Pippa Middleton thread??

I saw "rear end in all its glory" and my hopes got up!!

Oh well, I'll always have Paris....

[Anonymous Coward]

looks to me

like s toasted cheese sandwich. very tasty.

[CaNsA]

<obvious>

Enter random reference to Transformers here</obvious>

[FredScummer]

Something Is Missing

I haven't been able to spot where the Clangers hang out. Could someone help me please?

Paris because I reckon she's a Clanger (or is that Banger?).

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

@cool

Lowest point is Antoiniadi Crater -9.12 km, highest is on the dark side so doesn't have a name - it's romantically called (latitude 5.4125°, longitude 201.3665°) about 10,786 meters

You can get much higher mountains on the moon because the lower gravity doesn't pull them down and with no liquid mantle there is noting for them to sink down into.

Sea level on the moon is simpler than on earth, the moon is much more spherical (because it's solid and doesn't spin as fast) so you just pick an average distance form the centre. No two agencies seem to agree on the distance though

[TeeCee]

Bloody typical.

The side we can't see from here is the brightly coloured one.

[atomic jam]

It's a conspiracy!!

What we are actually observing is the migration of Moonshrimp!