Space & Cosmos

Image: Earth in far ultraviolet light

Credit: NASA

On April 21, 1972, NASA astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 mission, took a deep-ultraviolet photo of Earth with an ultraviolet camera. Young’s original black and white photograph was printed three times on Agfacontour professional film, recording only one light level at each exposure.

The three light levels are then colored blue (darkest), green (next lightest), and red (lightest), resulting in the enhanced color image seen here.

Dr. George Carruthers, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, developed the ultraviolet camera (the first lunar observatory) for Apollo 16. The Apollo 16 astronauts established an observatory on the moon’s surface in April 1972, and it is now located on Descartes on the moon. A high-altitude area in the shadow of the lunar module Orion.

Citation: Image: Earth in the Deep Ultraviolet (January 14, 2025), retrieved on January 15, 2025 from https://phys.org/news/2025-01-image-earth-ultraviolet.html

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