Vues de la Lune par Apollo 13
Video Credit:
NASA,
LRO;
Data Visualization:
Ernie Wright
(USRA);
Video Production & Editing:
David Ladd
(USRA);
What if the only way to get back to Earth was to go around the far side of the Moon?
Such was the dilemma of the
Apollo 13 Crew in 1970 as they tried to
return home in their unexpectedly
damaged spacecraft.
With the Moon in the middle, their
perilous journey
substituted spectacular views of the
lunar farside for radio contact with NASA's
Mission Control.
These views have now been
digitally recreated
from detailed images of the
Moon taken by the robotic
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The featured video starts by showing Earth disappear behind a dark lunar limb,
while eight minutes later the
Sun
rises around the opposite side of the Moon and
begins to illuminate the Moon's unusual and
spectacularly cratered surface.
Radio contact was only re-established several minutes after that, as a crescent
Earth rose into view.
With the gravity of the Moon and the advice of many industrious
NASA engineers and scientists,
a few days later
Apollo 13 opened its parachutes over the
Pacific Ocean and
landed safely back on
Earth.