The moon on GOES-12 images
The moon was observed adjacent to the Earth’s limb on the GOES-12 imagery at 11:15 UTC on 24 May 2007. Some of the large-scale features of the moon’s surface could be seen in the GOES-12 visible channel image (above), while the other 4 InfraRed (IR) channels (below) revealed a “banded” pattern of brightness temperatures resulting from the large thermal gradient between the very hot sunlit portion of the moon (where temperatures can reach +110º C / +230º F) and the very cold “dark” side of the moon (where temperatures can fall to -180º C / -292º F).
