The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and public broadcaster NHK have released a scaled-down online version of their much anticipated high-definition video of the Earth rising over the lunar horizon. The video was taken on November 7 by the HDTV camera aboard the KAGUYA (SELENE) lunar explorer orbiting the moon at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles). The first part of the video shows the Earth rising up from the horizon near the moon’s north pole, and the second part shows the Earth setting near the moon’s south pole. The original high-definition footage, which NHK plans to broadcast soon, is the world’s first high-definition video of Earth taken from the moon (380,000 kilometers/ 236,000 miles from Earth). Obviously, the edited YouTube version you see here (as well as the original online version at JAXA) is not in HD format, but it is a nice teaser for what is coming to HDTV viewers in Japan.

[Source: JAXA]