What happens when American tourists go to the moon? They play golf. What happens when Japanese tourists go to the moon? You get high-resolution photographs, HDTV broadcasts and YouTube videos of “earth-rise” and “earth-set” as seen from their orbiting tour bus.

These pictures were taken from the lunar orbiter Kaguya, operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Of course, they could only be taken from an orbiter, since the moon always shows the same face to the earth, so there’s no such thing, really, as an “earth-rise” or “earth-set” on the moon.¹ Click through for full-size (1920×1080) photographs.

The crater in the foreground of the second image is Shackleton crater, the permanently-dark and cold polar area where the next NASA moon mission intends sending a lander in the hope of finding ice of some description. If all goes according to plan, it will touch down on the mound to the left of the crater (see annotated image), which, unlike Shackleton crater itself, always receives sunlight (and consequently, solar power). If you look at the earth carefully, you’ll note that Australia is not down-under, it’s onnnn… TOP!

The images, along with diagrams and movies can be downloaded from JAXA’s website. A news report is here.

Update: Added a footnote about lunar librations, and added an annotated image showing features in the earth-set image.

1. It’s been brought to my attention that though strictly true, this statement isn’t strictly true. The inclination of the moon’s axis relative to that of the earth, and the perspective change due to the moon’s rotation around the earth means that we can see 59% of the face of the moon, so there’s a significant part of the surface of the moon from which apparent “earth-rise” or “earth-set” would be visible. For more, see this animation and explanation of “lunar libration”. [↩]

Since I’m laid up in bed with a rather annoying flu that managed to switch off both body and mind, I figured I’d pass the time and break the silence with links to the half-dozen most popular posts on my blog, as per Google Analytics. They represent a gratifying mix of subjects, ranging from the environment to economic theory, from social networks to media freedom, from silly bureaucrats to great press photographs. In order of popularity:

1. 10 reasons to reject global warming — A summary of why I can’t accept the orthodox view that global warming is a crisis that requires large-scale government intervention. This item has not only been the most popular, despite being published only three weeks ago, but it recorded a surprisingly high average of 24 minutes spent on the page. It was a follow-up to a column published in Maverick magazine, entitled Global warming is a hoax. In some ways, the second attempt turned out to be the column I had actually set out to write.
2. Child labour: the baby dragon — This was a response to a question asked in the comments to an earlier post, which simply argued that import restrictions on Chinese goods, while protecting narrow interests, are not in the broad interests of South African consumers. “But what about child labour?” came the question. My response, namely that the description of such practices is an over-generalisation, that blanket condemnation is simplistic, and that either way, our objection can better be expressed in individual, targeted, specific boycotts rather than state-enforced punishment against an entire foreign country at the cost of local consumers, prompted a fair bit of outrage. As it would, when you see things only in black-and-white, and when every problem only has one, statist, solution.
3. This is a poke-free zone — Despite deriving some benefits from Facebook, the popular social network that attracted hundreds of thousands of South Africans in the space of just a few months, the signal-to-noise ratio had been declining, and I vowed to leave for good the day Microsoft got involved. It did. I left.
4. Info Scandal II — A cautionary tale about what happens when politicians and civil servants own media interests and try to buy out a major newspaper critical of the government. A follow-up post noted a significant difference, pointed out by Anton Harber, between the proposed buyout of Johnnic Communications (soon to be called Avusa) and the original Info Scandal of 1978.
5. The candyman can’t — Who needs to invent jokes when politically-correct bureaucrats will hand them to you on custom-printed signs?
6. The life and death of Kevin Carter — An old article about the late Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer stirred recollections of the years of South Africa’s transition to democracy. It occurred to me that many of my memories from that time aren’t memories at all. They’re Kevin Carter’s photographs.

Of these, my own favourite is the Kevin Carter piece. Like the item on William F. Deedes and the post on Isambard Kingdom Brunel (and the follow-up column it sparked), they reflect the pleasure I take in history and the great people that populate it.