NASA says its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the moon has captured a dramatic new "Earthrise" photo, recalling the famous original that Apollo astronauts took in 1968.
In the new photo just released, the earth -- tiny but beautiful with its white clouds and blue oceans -- is rising over the moon's disk, in the same manner as seen in the original "Earthrise" image taken by Apollo astronaut Bill Anders decades ago.
The LRO took the photo Feb. 1 as it was approaching the north pole of the moon, NASA said.
The opportunity for such an image is rare, since the only time the obiter's camera is directed away from its straight gaze down onto the moon is when it is swung toward the moon's edge to calibrate and update its position.
Normally it fixes its gaze on the lunar surface seeking signs of ice or water in craters that are permanently in shadow.
It was during one of these calibration movements that the wide-angle camera, or WAC, on the orbiter caught the dramatic sight of the rising Earth 217,000 miles away.
Many images taken at different wavelengths, optimized for green, blue and red, were combined to give a true-color view of the Earth as human eyes would see it.
The relative brightness of the moon and the Earth is also as the eye would see it, with the Earth much brighter in relation to the moon.
Multiple images are required because the WAC on the orbiter differs from many digital cameras in terms of the resolution of its images.
A typical smartphone camera can capture images with as many as 5 million pixels, compared to the 9,856 pixels of each WAC image.
A final, large image like the "Earthrise" one is created from many separate frames as the LRO moves through its orbits around the moon. This method of creating images is identified as "push-frame."
The Earthrise tag is a bit of a misnomer in reality.
The Earth does not actually rise above the edge of the moon since the moon has the same side pointed to the Earth at all times. The apparent "rising effect" is due to the LRO's orbit, which means it experiences 12 of the "earthrises" each day.
At the top of the portion of lunar surface visible in the LRO image is the Rozhdestvenskiy crater, more than 100 miles wide.
