I came across this image today while going through the latest Cassini PDS (Planetary Data System) release, and remembered how excited I was to see it the first time when it came in last June. If you missed it, here it is again (with an image fresh off the PDS!) Man, I just LOVE this…
A New Look at Neptune
Ok, ok… it’s not “new” (it’s from a HubbleNews article released in 2005) but since I just came across it myself, it’s new to me! So maybe it’s new to you too. 🙂 The video above was created from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing distant Neptune (we’re talking four and a half…
From the LITD Archives: Saturn’s Southern Storm
Originally posted on March 3, 2009: A great spiraling whirlpool of wind-whipped clouds wraps around Saturn’s southern pole, photographed here in polarized infrared light by Cassini on July 15, 2008. Towering white clouds mark areas of rising heat from deep within the atmosphere. The winds around the vortex have been measured at over 300 mph….
30 Years, 133 Launches, 133 Seconds
In honor of the end of NASA’s shuttle program (with only two flights remaining) CNN videographers have assembled a wonderful montage of the 133 launches over the past 30 years and put them together in the video below. Check it out! (There may be a brief advertisement at the beginning…that’s embedded in the CNN video.)…
First Orbit: Celebrating 50 Years in Space
On April 12, 1961 – a mere five decades ago – Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched aboard his Vostok-1 spacecraft, becoming the first human in space. Alone, he was the first person ever to look down upon our planet from orbit. He was only 28 years old. Today the world celebrates the 50th anniversary…
Afternoon Delight
I spotted this on the SDO site late this afternoon…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out many tens of thousands of miles…the Earth could easily fit many times over beneath the looping structure! This image is from about 5pm EDT (21:59 UT), and shows the eastern limb of the Sun,…
Icy Spiders
Near Mars’ polar regions, spidery cracks and crevasses in the surface hold the last remnants of the winter season’s carbon dioxide frost – a.k.a. “dry ice” – which will eventually evaporate into the Martian atmosphere as CO2 gas. This process is seen on Earth only in specialized manmade situations such as when used as…
Last Night’s Moon
Crescent Moon w/Earthshine, originally uploaded by Lights In The Dark. The Moon looked especially nice last night (April 5), crescent-lit at dusk and the rest illuminated by cool blue Earthshine! (That’s sunlight reflected off the Earth and onto the Moon…and then back to the Earth to our eyes!) The image above was taken without a…
Craters Young and Old
This image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) shows two similarly-sized craters in the Oceanus Procellarum (“Sea of Storms”) region of the Moon – a large mare on the Earth-facing side, on the northwestern edge. One crater is surrounded and covered by boulders and debris, denoting its young age compared to the smooth,…
There Goes The Sun
The Sun was briefly slashed in half diagonally when Earth’s atmosphere hid it from the view of NASA’s SDO spacecraft on April 1, 2011. (No foolin’!) SDO is currently in an orbit that puts the Earth between it and the Sun momentarily each day. When this happens, SDO’s view is blocked completely for several minutes…
The Colors of Mercury
Another new wide-angle image from MESSENGER in orbit, this is a color image of Mercury made from data taken in red, green and blue visible light wavelengths. Variations in surface textures and colorations can be seen, as well as long bright streaks running horizontally  – these are the ejecta rays extending from Hokusai Crater, off-frame…
Catchin’ Some Rays
One of the newest images from MESSENGER, now nice and comfy in orbit around Mercury, is of the bright Debussy crater and part of its extensive system of surrounding ejecta rays. The crater’s jagged central peak can be seen in this top-down view from the spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera (NAC). Also, here’s a new image of…
Lights in the Dark 