A high-res image of Mars’ moon Phobos, acquired on January 9 by ESA’s Mars Express, shows a large boulder on the irregularly-shaped moon’s southern hemisphere. It rests near the edge of a large crater…when I rotated the image it looked as if it should just start rolling backwards and slide right over the edge! (The…
Turning Fear Around
Here’s a quick animation of Mars’ moon Phobos, made from five images – released today – taken by ESA’s Mars Express during its flyby on January 9, 2011. Passing by the 14-mile-wide moon at a distance of about 62 miles (100 km), Mars Express took images in five HRSC channels…I combined those to create this….
Lunar Highlands
In another rare oblique-angle view from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter we get a look at the hilly highland terrain around a lunar crater called Vertregt J. The image above shows a shadow being cast by a cratered ridge…check out the image at right for a larger zoomable view of the region. (This area is on…
A Peak Inside
Here’s a close-up look at the central peak of our moon’s Aitken Crater, part of an image captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on January 11, 2010. Taken at an angle, this view offers a nice sense of relief and perspective on a lunar feature not normally visible in direct-overhead shots. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has…
Roving the Edge
Here’s a great view of Santa Maria crater made from a couple of raw images from the Opportunity rover, taken earlier this month and assembled by Stu Atkinson. (I did take the liberty of cropping the original image a bit and filling in some of the sky at upper right.) I particularly like the texture…
Lesson Learned
Another good one from the awesome that is xkcd. Brilliant. The Stingray Nebula (Hen-1357) is one of the youngest known planetary nebula – the result of a dying star shedding its outer layers and illuminating the expanding gas with radiation. Located in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar) the Stingray Nebula is 18,000 light-years away….
WordPress Posting Challenge
Ok, it’s not really a challenge for me because I post an awful lot of things here on Lights in the Dark, but I think it’s great that WordPress is putting forth the effort to get more of their bloggers….well, blogging, with their Post Every Day Challenge. It’s an attempt to get people writing, regardless…
A Close Pass
Here’s a close-up look at the extensively-cratered surface of Rhea, Saturn’s second-largest moon, captured by Cassini as it performed its closest flyby yet on the morning of January 11, 2010. Passing a mere 43 miles (69 km) over the surface, Cassini got a great look at some of the deep craters that literally cover the…
Radar Love
NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar, located in California’s Mojave Desert, recently made some detailed observations of asteroid 2010 JL33 on December 11 and 12, 2010 as it tumbled through space at a distance of 5.3 million miles – 22 times further away than the Moon! The radar images have also been assembled into a…
Photo Trivia Answer
The answer has been posted to the first LITD Photo Trivia! Check it out on the original article. I think I gave everyone enough opportunity to guess… 🙂
Saturn’s Skyline
A raw image from Cassini taken on January 9, 2011, this minimally-composed image is actually quite fascinating (IMO): it’s a look at the upper levels of Saturn’s atmosphere in methane wavelength! Yes, Saturn is a gas giant and most of its volume is made up of hydrogen and helium, but there are layers of its…
Photo Trivia
In the tradition of Universe Today’s “Where in the Universe” series, here’s a little space exploration-based photo trivia for you: what is pictured in the above image? It’s something that many of you are already familiar with, and it’s not outside of our solar system…..but that’s all the clues I’m giving! 🙂 I know one…
Lights in the Dark 