Saturn might look like a placid beige ball in backyard telescopes but in reality it has very dynamic weather patterns and climates, rivaling the storms of Jupiter and the varied climates of Earth, based on long-term microwave observations by the Cassini spacecraft. (Yes, microwaves are good for much more than heating up your coffee.)
Tag: NASA
No, this isn’t a shot from the film “Gravity” (but it could be)
I could say “how have I never heard of this!?” but the truth is I wasn’t blogging about space in February 2006 when this image was taken. Still, it’s no less incredible to watch! But if you’re not already familiar with this, it may not be exactly what you think…
Voyager 1: It’s Officially Out
“We made it! 35 years and 13 billion miles.” Those were the words of project scientist Ed Stone today during a NASA news conference about the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which, after traveling the far reaches of our Solar System for decades on end, has finally passed the physical boundaries of the heliosphere and entered interstellar…
A Frog Makes One Giant Leap for Lunar Exploration
At 11:27 pm EDT on September 6, 2013, NASA’s LADEE mission lifted off aboard a Minotaur V rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia shore, a launch visible across the entire northeast coast as it arced beautifully over the Atlantic on its way to the Moon. Sadly, at least one frog may have…
Curiosity will check out these bright outcrops on her way to Mount Sharp
An outcrop visible as light-toned streaks in the lower center of this image has been chosen as a place for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity to study for a few days in September 2013. The pause for observations at this area, called “Waypoint 1,” is the first during the rover’s trek of many months from the…
What Does the Moon Smell Like?
The Moon may not have any air to breathe, but it does have a very thin exosphere — a diffuse layer of molecules held by gravity above its surface that sometimes traps some of the very fine lunar dust in suspension via electrostatic activity. (In fact this very evening, at 11:27 pm EDT, Sept. 6,…
A Cosmic Quotation Mark? No, It’s Just Another Moon of Saturn
What looks like a single open-quote (or backwards comma) is really Saturn’s two-toned moon Iapetus, seen here in RGB composite color made from raw images acquired by Cassini on Aug. 30 from a distance of about 1.5 million miles. With a leading side stained a dark reddish hue and a trailing side bright white, the…
Want to know where we landed on the Moon? This cool vintage NASA map shows you:
Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 all successfully delivered men to the Moon between the summer of ’69 and December 1972 (and yes, they most certainly did happen) but do you know where on the lunar surface they each landed? This awesome vintage map from NASA points each site out (and is a…
Happy 1-Year Anniversary to Curiosity! (Play It Again, SAM!)
Today marks the one (Earth) year anniversary of Curiosity’s landing on Mars, which occurred on at 10:31 p.m PDT August 5 (1:31 p.m. EDT August 6) 2012… hard to believe it’s been a whole year already! But then, with all that the MSL mission has discovered over these past 12 months, it’s also hard to believe…
Titan Not Windy Enough For Waves? Cassini Will See About That.
Saturn’s largest moon Titan has often been likened to a primordial Earth, with its thick atmosphere, changing weather patterns, and — most intriguing of all — vast amounts of liquid on its surface in the form of lakes, streams, and rivers. One big difference though: nearly ten times farther from the Sun than we are,…
The Frightful Fallacy of “False Color”
I rarely ever reblog posts, but this is an excellent criticism on the term “false color” and its oft-maligned perception by the modern public, and also a support of coloration techniques used in astronomy to produce the beautiful — and scientifically valuable — space images we have all come to enjoy (and expect!) By Dr….
Incredible Images of Earth from Saturn and Mercury
What does the Earth and Moon look like from other planets in the solar system? Just more pretty little lights in the dark…
Lights in the Dark 