The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Watching the Earthrise over the moon

And set again

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server

Video: From the department of very cool videos come two real corkers. Japan's space agency (JAXA) has released two high definition videos of Earthrise and Earthset, as witnessed by its lunar explorer SELENE, which is now orbiting our largest natural satellite.

The mission arrived at the Moon on 18 October, when it was inserted into orbit at an altitude of roughly 100km.

You can watch the Earth rise here, and set here.

The pictures are something quite special. There is no sound, so you can even imagine that you are floating 100km above the lunar surface, gazing into the awesome depths of space instead of sneaking a break from work in front of your laptop.

The Earthrise video is also entertaining for its initial optical illusion that the Moon is covered in smooth bumps instead of craters. Stare at the picture long enough and it sorts itself out. Honest. ®

Free whitepaper – Power distribution systems for the Dell PowerEdge M1000e Modular Server Enclosure

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes