windowing system. The file can be viewed using the play79 program for MSDOS (available in the pub/SPACE/SOFTWARE directory on
ames.arc.nasa.gov) or the freely available xanim package for X.
This is part of a time-lapse sequence taken by the Galileo spacecraft on December 16, 1992, eight days after its flyby of the Earth/Moon system en route to Jupiter. The full color sequence utilized the 0.968, 0.727 and violet filters; this reduced, black-and-white version was made with the 0.968 micron filter so that both vegetated and unvegetated land masses appear bright in contrast to the oceans. The 46 frames span 15 hours of motion by the Earth, Moon and spacecraft as viewed from the perspective of Galileo, with South at the top. Visible are the Pacific basin, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, and finally Arabia and the horn of Africa. A remarkable feature of this sequence is the specular reflection or sun glint from the sea surface. Depending on the roughness of the water the extent of specular reflection varies rapidly, expanding over rough seas and contracting to a point over still oceanic pools such as near the west coast of Australia.
Source: Paul Geissler, Larry Kendall, and Michael Nolan, University of Arizona, with thanks to M.J.S. Belton and the Galileo Imaging Team.
0 comments:
Post a Comment