Two of Saturn’s smaller moons pass by Cassini’s wide-angle camera in this animation sequence, made from 60 raw images taken on May 26, 2009. Prometheus enters first, stage right, deforming the ringlets of the F ring with its gravity, and is followed shortly after by Atlas, taking the inside track around the edge of…
Month: May 2009
Mercury’s Lunacy
This image, chosen as the Astronomy Picture of the Day, shows a view of Mercury’s cratered surface that is remarkably similar to our own moon’s terrain. This hints at a similar volcanic past, with lava flows filling in craters and smoothing their surfaces over. This image was taken in October of 2008 by…
Ripples Have Ridges
Another great image showing Saturn’s moon Daphnis sending up high-walled waves in the ring material edging the Keeler Gap in which it resides. The waves cast shadows back onto the A ring, as does the moon itself. This image was taken on May 24, 2009 by the Cassini spacecraft. RAW image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Photo Op
A grainy black-and-white image of the underside of Opportunity, taken over the past couple of days. Unretouched, out of focus, slightly underexposed. In terms of its scientific value, a throw-away. But…..I like it. A lot. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Badge of Honor
While waiting for the Mars Exploration Rover team to get it unstuck from its current position, the Spirit rover turned its camera onto itself, highlighting the badge it proudly displays on its solar panel. With all of the spacecraft that have been launched into the heavens over the past half century or so, this…
Craternator
A large-scale crater rides the terminator between day and night on Dione, a 700-mile-wide moon of Saturn. The moon’s signature “wispy lines” can be seen on the sunlit side. These are long fractures in the moon’s surface, exposed ice-covered cliffs hundreds of feet high. Scientists believe they indicate past tectonic activity, or possibly the…
Off the Hook
These oddly-shaped landforms reside on the south polar region of Mars, an area rich in carbon-dioxide frost…aka dry ice. These embryonic features develop fairly rapidly and then erode back into the icy surface at a rate of about 15 feet per year. Click for a wider angle view of the region. (Looks like spilled…
Moon
Seems to be an interesting film. Look for it in theaters next month. Nice lunar shots anyway. 😉 It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job,…
Blue Light Special
The European Space Agency’s SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite returned this image today of the sun, taken in ultraviolet light at one-million-degree temperature wavelengths. Bright, twisted areas are regions of hotter storminess while darker spots are cooler zones called coronal holes. The SOHO satellite is positioned in orbit around the sun just inside…
Eclipsing Mimas
This animation, made from a series of 8 raw images taken by Cassini on May 14, shows Saturn’s moon Mimas being eclipsed by another object…..a neighboring moon, perhaps? It’s not mentioned, but it definitely seems to be something of similar size, and round. Mimas is best characterized by its large-scale Herschel crater in its…
Into the Shadows
Saturn’s shadow falls upon its rings in this image acquired by Cassini on March 20, 2009. Reflected light from the southern hemisphere of the planet illuminates part of the normally transparent C ring, silhouetting the ring segments there. This image is an approximate true-color view of the planet and rings as might be seen…
Sun Crossing
This amazing image was taken by NASA photographer Thierry Legault at 12:17 EST on May 13 as the shuttle Atlantis and Hubble Space Telescope passed in front of the sun, a fleeting transit lasting only .8 seconds. More images of this and the previous day’s transit can be found on Legault’s website. Mission astronauts…
Lights in the Dark 