NASA’s newest Moon mosaic is a whopping 681 gigapixels large

 

 

Over the last four years, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has snapped more than 10,000 images of the Moon's northern polar area. Now all of those images have been merged into one incredible gigapan, which clocks in at an astonishing 681 gigapixels.

The panorama is constructed of 10,581 images, and covers "a region of the Moon (2.54 million km², 0.98 million miles²) slightly larger than the combined area of Alaska (1.72 million km²) and Texas (0.70 million km²) -- at a resolution of 2 meters per pixel!" If the entire mosaic was printed out at 300DPI, it would be larger than a football field. And if you were to download it all at once, it would take up 950 gigabytes of space. That's a very, very big file.

This image is now an incredibly detailed map of the northern climes of the Moon, and one that will provide extraordinary data on possible landing locations as well as key areas of scientific import. And, if you want to go zoom into the insane detail of this enormous image just head over here.

(via PetaPixel)