Our solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede. © Ted Stryk. With so much focus these days on Saturn’s many varied moons, I thought I’d post a beautiful image of Jupiter’s lesser-seen – but anything but lesser-sized – moon, Ganymede. The largest of Jupiter’s 63 named moons – as well as the largest moon in our…
Don’t drink the water…
Another timely goodie from xkcd! 🙂 (And in case you don’t get it, read this.)
Enceladus and the Rings
Here’s a surreal image of ice-covered Enceladus with Saturn’s rings in the background, as seen by Cassini on November 30, 2010 during its latest flyby. Amazing! The spacecraft was about 28,500 miles (45,827 km) away from Enceladus when this image was taken. I adjusted the levels a bit to bring out some detail in the…
Spray It, Don’t Say It
Cassini’s done it again…images of Enceladus’ south-pole jets in all their icy glory are in from yesterday’s flyby! The one shown here, a raw image that I’ve rotated 180º (so south is “down”) shows the moon lit partly by sunlight (the sliver of white crescent along the left) and partly by “Saturnshine” (reflected sunlight off…
Spongebob Spacepants
Covered with deep, punched-in craters, Saturn’s 168-mile- (270-km-) wide moon Hyperion resembles a sea sponge more than it does a moon. But a moon it is…in fact, Hyperion is the largest irregularly-shaped moon in the solar system. This image, one of the first sent back from Cassini since awakening from its three-week-long “safe mode” following…
Fear a-Flying
Part of a bulk data release from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter (available at ftp://psa.esac.esa.int/pub/mirror/MARS-EXPRESS/HRSC, posted on unmannedspaceflight.com by user peter59) this wonderful image shows Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons, in orbit against the backdrop of the planet’s limb. The dark, irregularly-shaped moon is shown in amazing clarity, giving a very nice…
From the LITD Archives: Sheer Elegance
Originally posted on March 13, 2009, here’s a quick reprint in honor of Cassini’s return to business! Viewed from the unlit side, the delicate transparency of Saturn’s innermost “C” Ring becomes apparent in this photo. Saturn’s upper atmospheric haze can be seen through the dark material of the rings. This photo shows a natural color view. Image…
Haunting Beauty
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Congrats to Tor Even Mathisen for making the Astronomy Picture of the Day today with his beautiful time-lapse video of the aurora borealis illuminating the night sky over Tromsø, Norway! I first came across this video last week on Bad Astronomy, it’s a hauntingly beautiful presentation of the…
Window on the World
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to look out of the windows of the space station orbiting Earth at an altitude of 220 miles, watch this video! (Give it a few seconds to start up.) Expedition 25 flight engineer Scott Kelly gives us a tour of the station’s cupola, offering astronauts a…
Where the Sun Don’t Shine
There are places surprisingly close by that are the coldest known spots in the entire solar system: on our Moon’s south pole lie deep craters that never receive direct sunlight, in fact have never seen the Sun, and within these craters lie pockets of ice that contain the same frozen material they’ve had since forming…
A Sinuous Strand
Featured on the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Pick of the Week, this image from the observatory’s AIA 304 camera shows a gigantic filament snaking around the Sun’s southern hemisphere, hundreds of thousands of miles of magnetically-contained plasma made visible in extreme ultraviolet light. Filaments are bands of relatively cooler, denser solar material caught up in magnetic…
Waiting for Cassini
Color portrait of Saturn from Cassini It’s no secret to anyone who’s been following my posts these last couple of years…images from the Cassini mission are my personal favorites and make up more than half of all my posts. So you can imagine my dismay when Cassini went into a “safe” mode over the past…
Lights in the Dark 