# NASA lunar texture assets

Source: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720/ (CGI Moon Kit)
Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Data: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LROC WAC color mosaic and LOLA elevation.

NASA source material generally is not subject to copyright in the United States. Acknowledge NASA as source; do not imply endorsement. NASA usage guidelines: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/
No third-party copyright notice is shown for these specific maps.

Both maps use longitude-latitude cylindrical (equirectangular) projection, centered on 0 degrees longitude, with north at top.

- Original color (2019), 4096 x 2048 RGB: lroc_color_poles_4k.tif
  https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004700/a004720/lroc_color_poles_4k.tif
- Original elevation, 5760 x 2880 uint16: ldem_16_uint.tif
  https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004700/a004720/ldem_16_uint.tif
- Web color: moon-color-4k.webp, 4096 x 2048. Format conversion only, WebP quality 92. Natural nearly-gray color retained.
- Web elevation: moon-height-4k.png, 4096 x 2048. Lanczos downsampled, linearly normalized from original uint16 range [2037.0, 41371.0] to [0,255]. White = high.
- Preview: moon-color-preview.jpg, 1024 x 512.

Original unsigned height value h represents elevation h*0.5 - 10000 meters relative to radius 1737.4 km. The normalized PNG represents approximately -8981.5 m (black) through 10685.5 m (white). Browser decoded 8-bit normalized heights are for visual relief, not scientific measurement.

No AI-generated imagery or invented surface features. Color map is NASA's aesthetics-optimized data product; NASA filled poles using lower-resolution LOLA albedo.


## Additional assets

- Fallback lunar photograph: https://starxis.net/media/moon-lro.jpg (reused from the user-owned current STARXIS site). Original credit: NASA GSFC / LRO, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4109/.
- Space Grotesk and IBM Plex Mono: Google Fonts; locally hosted WOFF conversion from Google-provided TTF. SIL Open Font License.
- Three.js 0.170.0: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/three@0.170.0/build/three.module.min.js, MIT. The original license header is preserved.
- No AI-generated images. The conceptual survey grid is an interactive graphical overlay, not scientific resource data.

## STARXIS identity

The Open Axis symbol is an original two-part vector design for STARXIS. Light and dark SVG versions share the same geometry. The outlined wordmark uses the bundled Space Grotesk letterforms under the included SIL Open Font License.

## Engineering and visual model

Solar incidence: relative intercepted input on an ideal flat collector is max(0, cos(theta)), with theta measured from the surface normal. This is geometry only, not electrical output; conversion losses and shadowing are excluded. Reference: https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/arbitrary-orientation-and-tilt

Lunar scene: NASA surface data, no atmospheric halo or atmospheric star twinkle. Camera moves and rotation are illustrative and time-compressed; the survey layer shows conceptual coordinates, not discovered resource deposits or spacecraft trajectories. The Moon retains a fixed 3D radius; approaches are camera-distance changes. General lunar context: https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/


# STARXIS Mars assets

## Globe texture
- Files: `mars-color-native.webp` (1440×720), `mars-color-4k.webp` (4096×2048 resampled with Lanczos; does not add photographic detail), `mars-viking-original.tif` (NASA original).
- Official source: https://science.nasa.gov/3d-resources/mars/
- Download: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/cds/3d/resources/image/mars/Mars.tif
- Source description: Viking imagery processed at USGS, from JPL/Caltech planetary maps; 2:1 equirectangular global map.
- Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory & Caltech.
- NASA reuse guidance: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/ . NASA media, including texture maps, may generally be used on informational web pages with source acknowledgment and without implying endorsement.
- Limitation: official downloadable map has only 1440×720 pixels of source detail. The checked USGS high-resolution download hosts were inaccessible; no fictional or AI-generated replacement is included.

## Surface photograph
- Recommended file: `mars-surface-clean.webp` (4096px wide), clean rectangular crop from right side of Curiosity panorama. Rocky rust-colored terrain with no text or buildings.
- Also retained: `curiosity-ubajara-original.jpg` (29163×7446 pixels) and `mars-surface-panorama.webp` (6000px wide). The full panorama contains irregular black gaps between camera frames and some rover components; use the clean crop for the website.
- Official source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia26554-curiosity-surveys-the-ubajara-sampling-site-on-mars/
- Direct download: https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/jpegPIA26554.jpg
- Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
- Captured by Curiosity Mastcam on April 30, 2023 (sol 3815); official mosaic of 141 photographs. Released April 17, 2025.
- Reuse policy: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jpl-image-use-policy/ . Unless otherwise noted, JPL public-site imagery may be used for any purpose without prior permission; retain credit and do not imply NASA/JPL/Caltech endorsement.
- Derivative processing: rectangular crop, Lanczos downsampling and WebP compression only. No AI imagery, inpainting, fabricated terrain or added buildings.

## Delivered Mars files and presentation

- `dist/assets/mars-color.webp` is the native 1440×720 NASA Viking map, WebP encoded. The resampled 4K alternative is NOT delivered. No additional surface detail or relief is fabricated.
- `dist/assets/mars-surface.webp` is the 4096×917 clean Curiosity crop. CSS crops/pans this photograph according to viewport aspect ratio; the transition from globe to photograph is an artistic dissolve, not a geometrically continuous descent.
- Lighting, rotation, camera approach and exposure are illustrative; rotation is time-compressed. The planet radius remains constant. There is no made-up terrain displacement, orbit telemetry, atmosphere simulation or claimed STARXIS hardware.
- The score in `soundscape.js` is original browser synthesis: slowly changing harmonies, stereo tones, synthetic filtered texture and convolution reverb. It does not use external music or claim to reproduce Mars sound. It starts only after an explicit action, offers mute/volume controls on Mars, and suspends while the tab is hidden.
- The Mars sunlight study uses 100/r² percent relative to Earth at 1 AU. The Mars example uses r=1.52 AU, giving 43.28%; the range extends to approximately 1.67 AU. It excludes atmospheric, orientation and conversion losses.
- Scientific context: https://science.nasa.gov/mars/facts/
- Mars orbital elements: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/approx_pos.html
- MOXIE demonstration: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-oxygen-generating-experiment-moxie-completes-mars-mission/
- Design reference: https://activetheory.net/ . The site uses an original STARXIS composition; no Active Theory fonts, images, audio or application code are included.

## Lunar observatory update

The Moon is the homepage at `/` (with `/moon/` retained as an alias); Mars is at `/mars/`.
The elevation rendering uses the supplied NASA LOLA display map with a blue-to-gold false-colour scale and contour intervals of 1 km. Display height in kilometres is -8.9815 + 19.667 × normalized pixel value. Readouts are approximate samples from the 8-bit display texture, not survey-grade measurements. Coordinates are derived from the equirectangular texture's longitude/latitude mapping; north is at the top. Colour and elevation modes are illustrative renderings, including artistic lighting. Zoom moves the camera while preserving the physical globe radius. No new photographic or AI assets were added.
Lunar sound now follows the current chapter and adds quiet synthesized interaction cues only while the visitor has enabled the score. Volume and mute are available in the observatory.


EARTH EXPERIENCE / SEPTEMBER 2026
# STARXIS Earth imagery

All assets came from NASA primary sources. No AI-generated imagery, artist renderings, or synthetic replacement imagery was used. Local derivative files were only resized and JPEG-compressed; colors and content were not altered.

## Day globe texture

- Ready file: `earth-day-4096.jpg`, 4096 × 2048, 1,002,531 bytes. Smaller option: `earth-day-2048.jpg`, 2048 × 1024, 292,630 bytes.
- Original saved as: `earth-day-original.jpg`, 5400 × 2700.
- Title: Blue Marble: Next Generation, July 2004 base map.
- Description: Equirectangular natural-color, cloud-free monthly satellite observation composite. Land data are from MODIS; NASA fills deep ocean with a uniform blue. This is a map assembled from observations, not a single Earth photograph. No topographic/bathymetric shading has been added in this base-map product.
- Source/download page: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/blue-marble-next-generation/base-map/
- Documentation/credits: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/blue-marble-next-generation/
- Original image: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/images/bmng/bmng-base/july/world.200407.3x5400x2700.jpg
- Requested credit: NASA Earth Observatory.
- Detailed credit: Blue Marble: Next Generation, produced by Reto Stöckli, NASA Earth Observatory (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).
- Suggested visible caption: “Earth surface · NASA Blue Marble satellite composite”

## Night globe texture

- Ready file: `earth-night-2048.jpg`, 2048 × 1024, 203,690 bytes.
- Original saved as: `earth-night-original.jpg`, 3600 × 1800.
- Title: Black Marble 2016, color global map.
- Description: Equirectangular nighttime lights observation composite from Suomi NPP VIIRS. NASA processing selects cloud-free nights; this map represents observations across 2016, not one moment in time. Contains a dark colored land/ocean basemap; for a globe, apply as night-side color or restrict emissive intensity to sufficiently bright pixels.
- Source/download page: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/earth-at-night/maps/
- Documentation/credits: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/night-light-maps-open-up-new-applications-90008/
- Original image: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/images/imagerecords/144000/144898/BlackMarble_2016_01deg.jpg
- Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Román, NASA GSFC.
- Suggested visible caption: “Night lights · NASA Black Marble, 2016 composite”

## Wide Earth horizon photograph — selected

- Ready file: `earth-limb-2400.jpg`, 2400 × 1600, 637,256 bytes.
- Original saved as: `earth-limb-iss068-e-7563-original.jpg`, 5568 × 3712.
- NASA Photo ID: ISS068-E-7563.
- Date/time: October 3, 2022, 13:37:09 GMT.
- Camera: Nikon D5, 22 mm lens, ISS altitude 415 km.
- Description: Real orbital photograph showing Earth’s curved blue atmospheric limb, ocean, and cloud bands, with black space above. No station hardware visible. The record lists the ISS nadir point as 34.6° N, 24.0° W, over the North Atlantic; the photo center is not geolocated. Visually inspected.
- Source page: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS068&roll=E&frame=7563
- Original image: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/DatabaseImages/ESC/large/ISS068/ISS068-E-7563.JPG
- Credit: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center. Photo ISS068-E-7563.
- Use/credit guidance: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/FAQ/default.htm
- Suggested caption: “Earth’s horizon from the International Space Station · NASA, October 2022”
- Good CSS crop: use the 3:2 image directly; for a wide section use `object-fit: cover; object-position: center 25%` to retain the atmosphere. Cropping is optional and should not be described as the original full photograph.

## Alternate photograph

- File: `earth-limb-iss067-e-83520-original.jpg`, 4176 × 2784, 827,037 bytes.
- Date: May 28, 2022, 15:38:12 GMT.
- Source: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS067&roll=E&frame=83520
- Original image: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/DatabaseImages/ESC/large/ISS067/ISS067-E-83520.JPG
- Credit: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center. Photo ISS067-E-83520.
- Visual difference: brighter, bluer ocean and horizon; a small piece of station hardware enters at top left. Selected photograph above has the cleaner composition.


LUNAR PHOTOGRAPHY
{
  "retrieved_at": "2026-09-11",
  "asset_policy": "All listed image files are actual NASA mission photographs downloaded from NASA-hosted image URLs. No generated imagery or artist concepts.",
  "usage_guidelines_url": "https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/",
  "usage_notes": "NASA's media guidelines say NASA content generally is not subject to copyright in the United States, NASA should be acknowledged as source, and use must not imply NASA endorsement. Preserve the listed image credits. These selected photographs contain no identifiable people or visible NASA logos. The guidelines also distinguish third-party material and commercial promotional uses; consult the linked official guidelines for final usage context.",
  "assets": [
    {
      "filename": "tycho-central-peak.jpg",
      "recommended_role": "Wide hero or cinematic terrain photograph",
      "dimensions": [2147, 985],
      "title": "Tycho Crater's Central Peak on the Moon",
      "description": "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera photograph of the sunlit central peak complex of Tycho crater, June 10, 2011. Orbital image; not a south-pole surface photograph.",
      "credit": "NASA Goddard/Arizona State University",
      "source_page": "https://science.nasa.gov/resource/tycho-craters-central-peak-on-the-moon/",
      "image_url": "https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/psd/solar/2023/09/5/565736main_M162350671LE_full.jpg?w=2147&h=986&fit=clip&crop=faces%2Cfocalpoint",
      "verification": "Image URL extracted from the NASA source-page HTML; downloaded successfully and visually inspected."
    },
    {
      "filename": "apollo17-boulder.jpg",
      "recommended_role": "Lunar rock photograph",
      "dimensions": [4400, 4600],
      "title": "Apollo 17 boulder with Earth above",
      "nasa_photo_id": "AS17-137-20910",
      "description": "Original Apollo 17 Hasselblad photograph of a boulder at Station 2 during the second lunar EVA. Earth is visible above the boulder. The scan contains original film boundaries and reseau marks.",
      "credit": "NASA",
      "source_page": "https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?frame=20910&mission=AS17&roll=137",
      "image_url": "https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/DatabaseImages/ISD/highres/AS17/AS17-137-20910.JPG",
      "verification": "High-resolution image URL linked from the NASA source-page HTML; downloaded successfully and visually inspected."
    },
    {
      "filename": "apollo15-crater.jpg",
      "recommended_role": "Optional lunar regolith and landscape alternative",
      "dimensions": [3880, 3832],
      "title": "View of Portion of Relatively Fresh Crater As Photographed by Apollo 15",
      "nasa_photo_id": "AS15-82-11082",
      "description": "Original Apollo 15 lunar surface photograph near Scarp Crater with coarse regolith in the foreground and the Apennine Front and Hadley Delta in the background. The source-page caption identifies August 2, 1971; a separate historical-date field inconsistently states July 31, 1971, so use mission-only labeling.",
      "credit": "NASA/JSC",
      "source_page": "https://science.nasa.gov/resource/view-of-portion-of-relatively-fresh-crater-as-photographed-by-apollo-15/",
      "image_url": "https://assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage/assets/science/psd/lunar-science/2023/09/as15-82-11082_orig.jpg?crop=faces%2Cfocalpoint&fit=clip&h=3834&w=3880",
      "verification": "Image URL is the NASA source-page download link; downloaded successfully and visually inspected."
    }
  ]
}

No AI-generated images are used in the current site. Image resizing/compression and display cropping preserve source content.