Old craters are overlapped by younger ones in this image of Saturn’s moon Rhea, taken by the Cassini orbiter on August 29, 2008 and released today. The 950-mile-wide moon holds the distinction as the only known moon to have its own set of rings: a thin, scattered version of its parent’s signature trait. Perhaps…
News Post: The Green Comet Cometh
This evening, February 24th, Comet Lulin will pass by Earth at its closest point during its maiden voyage through the inner solar system. Viewers will be able to see the viridian-hued visitor near the constellation Leo, in the southeastern sky. Lulin’s colors come from the cyanogen gases in its atmosphere. These are ionized by the…
Prometheus Unbound
One of several tiny “shepherd” moons, a well-lit Prometheus cruises the gap between Saturn’s A and F rings, clearing the channel while pulling up a small plume of material from the ropy F ring as it passes by. This is from raw image data shot by Cassini on February 10, 2009. I adjusted the image…
Red Planet Tours Now Departing
As a special treat for today, I’ve assembled a montage of amazing video footage from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera and put it to music by the talented Nicholas Gunn (a fitting track from his Grand Canyon album.) These videos were CG constructed using stereo image data and topographical mapping information from the MRO, recreating…
What The Hex?
As Saturn’s spring approaches, its north pole comes into view and reveals the curious six-sided geometric shape rotating in its uppermost latitudes. This image was taken by Cassini one month ago. (The image was black-and-white….I colored it myself using the hues found in Saturn’s atmosphere. Click to see the original photo.) The hexagonal feature…
Total Eclipse of the Earth
Japan’s KAGUYA satellite took this photo of Earth from its orbit around the Moon during a penumbral eclipse – the positioning of the Earth between the Sun and Moon – on February 10, 2009 with its high-definition camera. This is the first time such an event has been photographed from the Moon. During a penumbral…
At Cliff’s Edge
Martian ground slips away into Ganges Chasm, one of many deep troughs that make up the vast Valles Marineris. Valles Marineris (Mariner Valley) is the largest known canyon in the solar system, 7 times deeper than the Grand Canyon and as long as the distance from New York to Los Angeles. It slices across…
Portrait of Home
It’s important to know where you came from. When it was on its way to the red planet in the summer of 2003, Europe’s Mars Express turned its camera and got a photo of the Earth and Moon. This is what we all look like from 5 million miles away. By the time it reaches Mars,…
Swinging By
Today, the spacecraft Dawn will get a little help from Mars by using its gravity to alter its course to visit Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids in the solar system. Dawn, a 2,500-pound satellite launched in September ’07, will come within 341 miles of Mars today at 4:28 PST (7:28 EST) as…
News Post: Fire in the Sky
Video of a fiery chunk of material falling to Earth was captured Sunday, February 15th in Austin, TX during local Channel 8 news coverage of the Austin Marathon. While some initially thought it may be debris from the recent collision of a U.S. and Russian satellite, the FAA is saying it was in fact a…
Distant Hills
Spirit sent us this image today from its position inside Gusev Crater on Mars, its cameras looking out over a rocky expanse called “Home Plate”. The original image was greyscale…I colored it in an attempt to approximate true color based on other true-color photos. It’s a little off but it’s pretty close to actual…
Enigmatic Enceladus
The tortured terrain of Enceladus (en-SELL-a-dus) comes into light in this image taken by Cassini last October. This is actually a false-color mosaic of 28 images, assembled by the imaging operations center in Boulder, CO. The bluish tints are used to highlight features on the moon’s surface and show different densities of surface material. I rotated…
Lights in the Dark 