NASA Photo ID: S90-55753 File Name: 10063794.jpg
Film Type: 4x5 Date Taken: 12/31/90
Title: Moon taken by Galileo after completing its first Earth Gravity Assist
Description:
Color image of the Moon was taken by Galileo spacecraft at 9:35 am Pacific
Standard Time (PST), 12-09-90, at a range of about 350,000 miles. The
color composite uses monochrome images taken through violet, red, and
near-infrared filters. The concentric, circular Orientale basin, 600
miles across, is near the center; the near side is to the right, the far
side to the left. At the upper right is the large, dark Oceanus
Procellarum; below it is the smaller Mare Humorum. These, like the small
dark Mare Orientale in the center of the basin, formed over 3 billion
years ago as basaltic lava flows. At the lower left, among the southern
cratered highlands of the far side, is the South-Pole-Aitken basin,
similar to Orientale but twice as great in diameter and much older and
more degraded by cratering and weathering. The cratered highlands of the
near and far sides and the Maria are covered with scattered bright, young
ray craters. Photo provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with
alternate number P-37329, 12-19-90.
Subject terms:
FLYBY MISSIONS
GALILEO SPACECRAFT
MOON
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