Monochromatic infrared view of the Moon

Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument took this monochromatic view of the Moon in infrared light on 4 March 2005, before closest approach to Earth, from a distance of 400 000 kilometres and with a resolution of 100 kilometres per pixel. The Sun’s illumination comes from the bottom left. In this image, VIRTIS mainly saw the radiation reflected by the surface, in the direction of the illumination source. This is visible in the white part of the image.