Nerdliness

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day featured an anaglyph image of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken by the Rosetta comet-probing spacecraft. I was impressed by the stereo image of this object in space in an up-close and personal view of another world.

From APOD:

Get out your red/cyan glasses and gaze across the surface of Churyumov-Gerasimenko, aka Comet 67P. The stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images from the Rosetta spacecraft’s narrow angle OSIRIS camera taken on September 22, 2014. Stark and jagged, the 3D landscape is found along the Seth region of the comet’s double-lobed nucleus. It spans about 985 x 820 meters, pocked by circular ridges, depressions, and flattened areas strewn with boulders and debris. The large steep-walled circular pit in the foreground is 180 meters in diameter. Rosetta’s mission to the comet ended in September 2016 when the spacecraft was commanded to a controlled impact with the comet’s surface.

This image is cropped from a 3D Photo found on Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze across Ceres at mysterious mountain Ahuna Mons. Shown in a 3D anaglyph perspective view, the mosaicked image data was captured in December of 2015, taken from the Dawn spacecraft’s low-altitude mapping orbit about 385 kilometers above the surface of the dwarf planet. A remarkable dome-shaped feature on Ceres, with steep, smooth sides Ahuna Mons is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter at its base, rising on average 4 kilometers to a flattened summit. Similar in size to mountains found on planet Earth, no other Cerean surface feature is so tall and well-defined. It is not known what process shaped the lonely Ahuna Mons, or if the bright material streaking its steepest side is the same material responsible for Ceres’ famous bright spots.

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, UCLA, MPS/DLR/IDA

Astronomy Picture of the Day posted a stereo card (like for old-time stereoscopes) of the planet Pluto as seen by the New Horizons mission spacecraft. I took the stereo card image and combined the left and right-eye images into the anaglyph (red-cyan) image above.

This is the original text from APOD:

Explanation: These two detailed, true color images of Pluto were captured during the historic New Horizons flyby last month. With slightly different perspectives on the now recognizeable surface features they are presented in this first high quality stereo pair intended for viewing by denizens of planet Earth. The left hand image (left eye) is a mosaic recorded when the spacecraft was about 450,000 kilometers from Pluto. The right single image was acquired earlier, a last full look before the spacecraft’s closest approach. Despite a difference in resolution, the pair combine for a stunning 3D perception of the distant, underworldly terrain.

You will need your free pair of 3D glasses to view the image (click image to enlarge). If you don’t have a pair, I have posted the original stereo card here.