The 914-mile-wide Iapetus turns its darker side towards Cassini’s cameras in this photo, taken on March 3, 2009, while a hint of its brighter face shows along its northern edge. This moon of Saturn has the distinction of being coated in dark material on one side, and bright white material on the other. Theories…
Following a Moon Shadow
I assembled this animation from 20 separate raw images, taken by Cassini on April 9th. It follows the elongated shadow of a moon, most likely Epimetheus (not officially specified), across the tops of Saturn’s rings. Beginning on the bright B ring the shadow moves across it, over the darker bands of the Cassini division,…
A Featureless Face
This photo taken by the Messenger spacecraft in June of last year shows the ghostly pale and nearly featureless face of Venus, our sister planet. Shot in visible light and RGB-calibrated by Gordan Ugarkovic, the global shroud of Venus’ oppressive (and corrosive) atmosphere lacks the swirling detail seen in most photos of the planet, which…
Executive Parking
One of the perks of working on the Moon is always being able to find a good parking spot. This image shows Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt standing below a boulder called “Tracy’s Rock”, with the lunar rover parked in the background. Schmitt is carrying a gnomon, a marked rod on…
Lights on the Dark Side
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has released the videos taken by the high-definition camera aboard its Kaguya lunar orbiter. This one is a flyover of a region called Mare Ingenii, or “Sea of Cleverness”, a rare lava flow area on the moon’s far side. The far side permanently faces away from the Earth and so…
Hazed and Diffused
Cassini captured this intriguing glimpse into Titan’s thick haze during its latest flyby. Made up of complex hydrocarbons, formed from the breakdown of methane by solar radiation, this pale blue shroud extends hundreds of miles above the moon’s surface…ten times thicker, in fact, than our own atmosphere. This is a raw image from the…
Happy Easter
LITD will be on vacation until Tuesday. Happy Easter to everyone and as always, keep looking up!
Intersection
The sinuous knife edge of three dune ridges connect in this photo from the HiRISE camera aboard the MRO. Click for a higher resolution version…the texture of the surface sand becomes more visible. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Clementine: Lost and Gone Forever, But Never Forgotten!
One of my all-time favorite space images is this little gem from the Clementine mission to the Moon, launched in January of 1994. It features a view from beyond the far side of the Moon, illuminated by reflected light off the Earth off frame to the left, blocking the disc of the Sun with the solar corona…
Dawn’s Light
The light of daybreak illuminates Saturn’s northern hemisphere and ring system in this dramatic image taken on March 20 by the Cassini spacecraft. From Saturn outward (lower right to upper left) the C, B, A, and thin F rings are visible. The B and A rings are separated by a darker band of thing rings…
But What About Venus?
I haven’t posted anything yet about our other neighboring planet, Venus, mostly because the currently active mission exploring it, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbiter, hasn’t been updating much with new images since I’ve begun this site. Still, Venus deserves some attention, so here’s a quick byte of Venus info. Possibly the most inhospitable of…
Birthing the Moon
Where did the moon come from? It seems silly to ask, given that it has shone down upon us, brightening our nights with its cool white light since humans – since life itself – ever existed. But it’s an anomaly. Venus has no moon. Neither does Mercury. Mars has two tiny chunks of rock…
Lights in the Dark 