The Moon in Color

[pokerfan]

by Nancy Atkinson on April 10, 2012

Recognize this? Yes, it is our own Moon, but using Photoshop, the photographer, César Cantú from the Chilidog Observatory in Monterrey, Mexico extracted the Moon’s colors and exaggerated them just a bit. “Although exaggerated, the color components are the real highlights,” César said, “with blue indicating a significant amount of titanium, and the orange areas with little iron or titanium. These colorful images are more easy to perform thanks to digital cameras that detect colors — where with analog cameras, it is still impossible.”

César took the image on April 6, 2012. See his website for more details.

http://www.universetoday.com/94509/astrophotos-a-colorful-moon/

[Scuba]

1. Nice, but I find "orange areas with little iron" counter-intuitive. Anyone???

[FiveGoodMen]

5. It does seem counter-intuitive, but if those are exaggerations of REAL colors...

I don't suppose you get rust on the moon.

[Scuba]

6. O2 shortage?

[FiveGoodMen]

8. That's what I'm thinking

[pokerfan]

7. Apollo 17

I found this:

145:26:22 Schmitt: Oh, hey! (Very brief pause)

(Jack has just seen the orange soil. He is cautious, having been fooled by sunlight reflected off the LCRU at the Scarp stop.)

145:26:25 Schmitt: Wait a minute...

145:26:26 Cernan: What?

(Fendell starts panning slowly counter-clockwise.)

145:26:27 Schmitt: Where are the reflections? I've been fooled once. There is orange soil!!

(Schmitt - "The orange soil was several meters away from the Rover, up closer to the boulder. The orange spots of light that I saw reflected off the LCRU at the Scarp stop were tiny things; the Mylar covering the LCRU was crinkled, and you only got small spots every once in a while when the Sun angles were just right. When I spotted the orange soil, I probably hadn't even started the pan. What I probably saw was the scuff marks I'd made when I went over to the boulder. Actually you could see the orange through the regolith, but it was more obvious after you'd stirred it up.&quot

(The patch of orange soil will become discernible in the TV picture once Fendell has panned around to the boulder.)

145:26:32 Cernan: Well, don't move it until I see it.

(Cernan - "Quite frankly, when Jack said he saw orange soil, I began to wonder if he hadn't been on the Moon too long. Until I saw it myself.&quot

145:26:35 Schmitt: (Very excited) It's all over!! Orange!!!

145:26:38 Cernan: Don't move it until I see it.

145:26:40 Schmitt: I stirred it up with my feet.

145:26:42 Cernan: (Excited, too) Hey, it is!! I can see it from here!

145:26:44 Schmitt: It's orange!

145:26:46 Cernan: Wait a minute, let me put my visor up. It's still orange!

(Cernan - "Like a pair of ordinary sunglasses, the visor attenuated the light but didn't really change the colors. If it was red, it was red; if it was blue, it was blue. But you could see the colors better with the visor up. I do that flying; I take my sunglasses off if I really want to see things clearly. So lifting up the visor was a natural thing for me to do.&quot

145:26:49 Schmitt: Sure it is! Crazy!

145:26:53 Cernan: Orange!

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.sta4.html

In addition, fire fountaining, whereby volcanic lava is lofted and cools into small glass beads before falling back to the surface, can create small but important deposits in some locations, such as the orange soil found at Shorty Crater in the Taurus-Littrow valley on Apollo 17, and the green glass found at Hadley-Apennine found on Apollo 15. Deposits of volcanic beads are also thought to be the origin of Dark Mantle Deposits (DMD) in other locations around the Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil#Soil_formation_processes

Cernan in the LM after EVA 3 on Apollo 17

[xocet]

10. And that is the story of the discovery of Tang.... n/t

[Shankapotomus]

12. That is an awesome photo

considering how it was taken inside a space craft that is parked on the surface of the moon and how unbelievably brave the man in the picture had to be to take that trip.

[pokerfan]

13. Yeah, if you could read his mind

it would be something like, "Holy shit! I'm on the Moon! Holy shit! I'm on the Moon! Holy shit! I'm on ..."

[Shankapotomus]

16. LOL

[ashling]

11. Yeah, I kept reading that line over and over

to see if I had read it wrong.

My thought process:
Orange = Red = Iron

All I can figure is that the lack of oxygen in space means that the iron would essentially never oxidize (rust) which is where it gets its red color

but then my earth (moon) science is a little rusty

[Odin2005]

14. Iron needs oxygen to rust, the moon has no atmosphere.

the lack of oxidation is why the moon is so dull-looking color-wise.

[ChazInAz]

17. Exactly.

A freshly-fallen iron meteorite looks exactly like a piece of black slag. Of course, that's what it is, after all!

[xxqqqzme]

2. So beautiful,

so beat up. The meteor strikes are more prominent w/ the color.

[daves24550]

15. well said. very nice.

[Cleita]

3. Looks like a bowling ball. n/t

[leftyohiolib]

4. exaggerated them just a bit... just a bit?

[lame54]

9. I think I see Newt

[tclambert]

18. If you look really close at Tycho crater,

you can see a monolith.

[pokerfan]

19. Good catch