New Moonscape Picture

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30980, 9 February 1966, Page 13

New Moonscape Picture

(N.ZP. A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, Feb. 8. The Russians yesterday displayed a big new moonscape picture radioed back by Luna IX and a Soviet astronomer said it showed the moon’s surface was safe to land on. “We will not sink into a layer of dust which has been predicted by some selenologists,” said Professor Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov. The professor was speaking on Moscow television shortly after the showing of a circular panorama shot showing what , it would be like to gaze out: from the Luna spacecraft. The picture was apparently: made up of several photographs taken by Luna IX’s television camera on Saturday evening and radioed back to earth. A commentator said the camera was inclined at an angle of 30 degrees so that in one direction only sky was visible, and in another only the pock-marked lunar surface close to the ship. Small Objects Seen As the camera revolved I parts of the mooncraft I appeared in the picture,' including aerials and two | small objects which showed; white against the black lunar sky and appeared to be sus-j pended from a higher parti of the ship. The picture also showed! two dark objects, described: as parts of the ship jettisoned as it settled gently on the! moon’s surface. As the camera swung! round, the horizon sloped | The commentator explained that this was due to the angle[ of the camera. If it had been i set vertically the horizon would have cut the picture horizontally in half. The new picture showed that Luna IX had settled in aj relatively’ flat area near the lunar equator, in the east of the “Ocean of Storms ” Shadow Reduced In the foreground the camera could pick out details as little as one or two twentyfifths of an inch across, but near the horizon about a mile away, only objects several yards across could be identified. The new picture filled almost the whole of the front page of las: night’s Government newspaper “Izvestia.” When the latest picture was taken, the sun was 27 degrees

above the horizon, cutting down the shadow cast by rocks lying on the surface to only a quarter of their length when the first pictures were taken. During the morning session on Friday, the sun had only just risen over the “Ocean of Storms” and was seven degrees above the horizon. The Russian news agency Tass said the series of pictures taken with the sun at different heights were of exceptional value for the study of the structure of the moon’s surface.

It enabled experts to make a more detailed study of the

size of the lunar cavity and hillocks, which are quite plentiful in the area where Lunar IX landed. Earlier yesterday Russia confirmed that Lunar IX had a final radio session the previous night before its power supplies ran down. The unscheduled contact with the one ton and a half craft came more than 24 hours after an official announcement said the research programme was ending. Tass announced that the moonship managed to squeeze out a last few television pictures before its batteries went dead.