On Saturday, Oct. 1, the Cassini spacecraft performed another flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Passing by at a distance of only 62 miles (99 km) Cassini took some fantastic images of the 318-mile-wide moon — most notably of its signature plumes of water ice spraying from fissures along its south pole!
Author: Jason Major
Jason is a Rhode Island-based graphic designer, photographer, nature lover, and space exploration fanatic.
Vision: Save The James Webb!
Do you love astronomy? Do you appreciate science? Do you have a curiosity about the nature of our Universe, how it came to be and what our place is within it? If you are even reading this I assume your answers to all of those questions is a resounding “yes!” and so I present to…
A Glow From Above
Many of the recent images and videos I’ve shared here have featured amazing views from the Space Station. At 250 miles up, astronauts aboard the ISS enjoy an unprecedented and privileged view of our world. In addition to having a vantage point from which to view the countries, continents and oceans below, they also get…
Goodnight Moon
Another stunning view from the Space Station, this photo was taken by Expedition 28 astronaut Ron Garan on July 31, 2011 and shows the Moon seeming to sink into the ocean of air that is our life-supporting atmosphere. As the Moon passes behind Earth’s limb it appears to get squished because of light being refracted…
Steve Jobs. He Thought Different.
He thought different than most people. He definitely thought different than most CEOs and most computer programmers. But he didn’t think so different that he lost touch of what people want, of who people are and that, ultimately, his products were by people, for people. That’s why they were so successful, that’s why everyone loves…
Can Comets Cause CMEs?
First, watch this sequence: What is it? It’s an animation made from images taken by ESA’s SOHO solar observatory showing a comet diving into the Sun on October 1, and then a large CME (coronal mass ejection) erupting immediately thereafter. Now, typically science has said that there is no connection between comets impacting the Sun…
Pay a Visit to Vesta
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Here’s a great video released by JPL taking us on a virtual tour of the asteroid Vesta, from the point of view of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. It’s a shape model of Vesta, mapped with actual images acquired by Dawn during its approach and orbit of the 550-km (340-mile)…
Mercury’s Curious Hollows
As part of a wealth of new information presented today by the MESSENGER science team, this image shows the interior of Sander Crater, located within Mercury’s vast Caloris Basin. Areas seen as bright spots in previous lower-resolution images have been revisited by MESSENGER once it entered orbit and began its science mission. The bright areas…
Did Earth Once Have Two Moons?
Our Moon. It lights up our nights, governs our tides and has inspired millions — perhaps billions -– of people throughout history to contemplate its nature, its influence on our lives (if any) and, of course, where it may have come from. The currently accepted theory is that over four and a half billion years ago our…
Ripples in the Sky
Here’s something interesting… This Saturday I was looking at some timelapse video from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope’s Cloudcam… those are beautiful in their own right, but really I was interested in seeing if there was any visual of the reentering UARS. After doing some time-zone math, I realized that the satellite would be reentering before it…
On Top of the World
In what may be the best single representation of the visual feast of images we have enjoyed from Expedition 28 flight engineer Ron Garan during his 5 1/2 month stay aboard the ISS, this amazing image shows him inside the Station’s cupola as he took his last images of Earth before departing. I must say,…
Rolling Stones in the Lake of Death
No, it’s not the title of a B-movie starring Keith Richards, it’s an image of lunar boulders resting in a line within a valley on the Moon. This valley, located in the central peak of Bürg crater, is filled with boulders ranging up to 70 feet across that have rolled downhill from either side. The…
Lights in the Dark 