Earth-Moon Distance EARTH-MOON DISTANCE - IMAGE &REALITYImage Processing ActivityIn this activity you will measure the distancebetween Earth and Moon in an image; model the scale distance betweenEarth and Moon using a globe or other sphere. (Confrontingmisconceptions; a common misconception; converting image fileformats.)Look at the image below and the apparent distancebetween Earth and Moon. How does this fit with your previousideas?Use the diameter of Earth as 1 unit.
How manyEarth diameters are between Earth and Moon in the image?The image you see below is linked to a largerimage that you will use for the image processing assignment. Click onthe image to go to the larger image, which you will need todownload.Image Source:credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona StateUniversityOriginal Caption Released with Image:2001 Mars Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System(THEMIS) took this portrait of the Earth and its companionMoon, using the infrared camera, one of two cameras in theinstrument. It was taken at a distance of 3,563,735kilometer s (more than 2 million miles) on April 19, 2001 asthe 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft left the Earth. From thisdistance and perspective the camera was able to acquire animage that directly shows the true distance from the Earthto the Moon. The Earth's diameter is about 12,750 km, andthe distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 km,corresponding to 30 Earth diameters.
The dark region seen onEarth in the infrared temperature image is the cold southpole, with a temperature of minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus58 degrees Fahrenheit). The small bright region above it iswarm Australia. This image was acquired using the 9.1µm infrared filter, one of nine filters that theinstrument will use to map the mineral composition andtemperature of the martian surface. From this greatdistance, each picture element (pixel) in the imagecorresponds to a region 900 by 900 kilometers or greater insize or about size of the state of Texas.
GraphicConverter 9.5 (build 1780), December 17, 2014 for Intel Macs with 10.7. The download will be there much faster due the available mirror servers.
Once Odysseyreaches Mars orbit each infrared pixel will cover a regiononly 100 by 100 meters on the surface, about the size of amajor league baseball field.Part 1: Creating a Scale ModelBefore beginning the technical aspect of thisproject, you will need to do a hands-on demonstration. During Module2 you found circumference of the Earth at the Equator is just over40,000 km.
The average Earth-Moon distance is about 385,000 km, whichis about 9.5 times the circumference. To make a quick scale model ofthis system, you will need a globe and a ball about a quarter of it'sdiameter to represent the Moon. Then,. Take a string and wrap it around the globe'sequator about 9.5 times. Attach (or hold) one end of the string at theglobe's surface.
Move the 'moon' the distance of the string,from the globeYou've just constructed a rough model of theEarth-Moon system with scaled size and distance.Note: The actual Earth-Moon distance ranges fromabout 360,000 to 405, 000 kilometers, depending on the position inthe Moon's orbit. Part 2: Image Processing - Downloading& Converting ImagesTo complete this activity you will need todownload the Earth-Moon Distance image. The above image is linked toa larger one, so take the link to the larger image, then download.You will notice that this image is in JPG format. Your imageprocessing software requires all images to be in TIFF format. Whilesome sites will let you download images as a TIFF, many of the imagesyou will be downloading from the Internet will come in JPG or GIFformat. You will need to convert these images from their original toa TIFF format.
You can do this using image editing shareware. A goodsource of shareware for all computers is the site. Links to image editing softwareare:-Several options are available; I've had a great deal ofsuccess with Graphic Converter-Several options are available; I've used Graphic Workshopsuccessfully in the pastShareware is software that allows you to use itfree for a trial period.
After the end of the trial period you areasked to pay a small shareware fee if you intend to keep thesoftware.Regardless of which software you choose, you willneed to open up the Earth-Moon JPG image and convert it to a TIFFformat. Because knowing how to convert images is an important tool inusing image process, we ask that you learn how to do this step. Helpeach other out, but please do not convert the image for someone else.Knowing how to convert images will allow you to use this software formultiple purposes in your classrooms. Once you have downloaded andconverted your image, following the instructions for the software youchoose, you are ready to use the image processing software to makemeasurements. Part 3: Image Processing - MakingMeasurementsWhen measuring, you may use either the upper orlower part of the image, it won't make a difference which one youchoose. To complete this activity complete the followingsteps:.
Open the software and import your image - besure to download and convert the attached jpg image. It is largerthan the original from the NASA site to make measuring easier andmore accurate.
You will recall from your tutorials that tomake measurements using the software you need to first set yourscale. There are several ways to do this, one is by telling theprogram what the pixel size is.
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