The Lunar Orbiter missions included five spacecrafts dedicated to map the entire lunar surface, a task necessary to select the landing sites for Apollo. The first three missions focused on twenty potential landing sites, while the two last ones—which flew high altitude polar orbits—took photographs of 99% of the surface with a resolution that ranged from 60 meters to an stunning 2 meter.

While these probes were not as sophisticated as the HD cameras of the Selene spacecraft developed by the Japanese space agency, the NASA orbiters had a clever imaging system that achieved similar results four decades ago. It included a dual lens camera—one 610 millimeter narrow angle for high resolution and an 80 millimeter wide angle for medium resolution—, a film processor, and a scanner. Both lenses were aligned to expose the same part of the 70 millimeter film roll, so the high resolution image area was centered with the medium resolution area.

This was more complicated that it sounds: Since the spaceship was cruising above the lunar surface, they had to compensate for that motion. Using an electro-optical sensor to measure the distance while a small motor shifted the film so the second exposure exactly matched the first one. After that, the film was processed, scanned, and the information send back to Earth, where it was stored in analog tapes.

Now, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project at NASA's Ames Research Center, is retrieving and analyzing all the data stored in those tapes. To do this, first they restored the original tape recorders and 1,500 of these tapes. Then they digitized the data into modern computer, putting it through special software designed to extract all that information to produce the image you are seeing here. Their goal is to do this with every single image lurking inside those tapes, which then will be mapped to standard coordinates and sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Their objective is not only preserving and enhancing these historical documents, but also provide the scientific community with refreshed information prior to next year's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. [NASA]

More Gizmodo Sunday Eye Candy

A solar furnace is a mirror structure used to concentrate sun rays into a small area called the focal point. As you can expect, the concentrated rays produce extremely high temperatures: At the focal point, solar furnaces can achieve temperatures of 5,430 ºF (3,000 ºC). The idea is not new—coming from ancient Greece—but their potential is starting to become more relevant now as we try to cut dependency on fossil fuels.

While this furnace is not as big as the largest solar furnace in the world at Odeillo, in the French Pyrenees, it's capable of achieving 4,352 ºF (2,400 ºC)—which, as you can see, it's enough to melt steel in a few seconds and almost disintegrate hot dogs. [Dark Roasted Blend]

While we have seen glimpses of how the F-35B—the short take-off vertical landing variant of the F-35 Lightning II—works, here's an amazingly detailed video showing its transforming capabilities in flight, which was posted anonymously in YouTube last week. According to Flight Global, this sophisticated war machine—which is now in its testing phase—won't see real action any time soon, as its engine is getting redesigned turbine blades. Update: one of the authors of the—apparently previously classified—video sends us more detailed information about what this really is.

The video was done two years ago for Northrop Grumman. Our reader was one of the three people who did it and he's quite surprised to find it online, since it is under NDA.

The one depicted is the X-35 [the prototype that won the contract for the Joint Strike Fighter and became the F-35]. I don’t know who posted it on YouTube, but the level of NDA’s was substantial where we were not even allowed to showcase it on our demo reel.

My guess is that, since the cat has been out of the bag for a long time, the NDA is no longer applicable. [Flight Global]