Spectral mineralogy image of the near side of the Moon, made by the Galileo spacecraft during a gravity-assist flyby of the Earth. Dark blue areas sho

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Spectral mineralogy image of the near side of the Moon, made by the Galileo spacecraft during a gravity-assist flyby of the Earth. Dark blue areas show an abundance of titanium in the surface rocks, green and yellow areas are titanium poor but rich in iron and magnesium, whilst orange areas are poor in all three metals. Images such as this have allowed a correlation of spectral data with known lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions, and the extrapolation of these data to study the mineralogy of the far side of the Moon. Galileo has used flybys of Earth and Venus to help it on its way to its ultimate destination, Jupiter, where it will arrive in late 1995.

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Size: 2584px × 3543px
Photo credit: © NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: astronomy, cosmology, galileo, imagery, images, lunar, mineral, moon, planetary, science, spectral, types