[X] My Assistant

[MizarKey]

You've probably seen the news already...

Kepler Crater as seen by SMART-1

It's easy to see some moving shadows in the animation. I took the gif and split out the individual images. I applied a .7 gamma in Paint Shop just to make the shadows stand out more. *Note, the inserted image below is a 5 frame animated gif. If it is not animated in your browser, please save the file locally and use a graphics program that will show the animation.



The right most box in the upper right has the darkest shadow, presumably SMART-1's shadow. The box next to that box shows a shadow of the shadow...at least, there's another shadow that appears to have the same trajectory as the darker shadow.

The box all alone in the left side contains a shadow that moves 'up', it begins near the crater at the lower left of the box.

The circle contains a large round shadow, probably something internal to the camera.

[djellison]

I don't think it's shadows - I think it's more likely contamination on the camera combined with internal reflection that appears to move as the spaceraft targetted the crater, and they then cropped the image thereafter.

You have to ask - a shadow of what? Smart's orbit is several hundred km - we're not talking Hayabusa here.

Doug