The View From Earth

The image below appears to be a typical telescopic view of the moon from earth. It is not what this picture shows that makes it special, but what it was taken with. It was obtained my the context imager for NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter during a test last fall. It will launch on August 10th. This camera will provide context images for HIRISE, an extremely powerful camera capable of taking images of the martian surface at 25 cm/pixel. This should be an exciting mission. For now, here is the context imager's view of the moon.