Can’t view the video below? Click here. Fifteen years ago we didn’t even know there were other solar systems. Now there’s been over 500 planets discovered orbiting other stars in our galaxy, with new ones added to the list almost weekly. Scientists using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, NASA’s orbiting Kepler spacecraft and other telescopes…
Tag: science
The Feeling’s Mutual
Dione slips behind Rhea in this animation made from 19 raw images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 20, 2011. Called a mutual event, the two moons seem to just miss each other – even though in reality they are separated by over 93,400 miles! Rhea and Dione are similar in composition and size,….
“A boulder as big as a house”
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…
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…
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…
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…
Eclipses From Orbit
Can’t see the video below? Click here to watch. In another view of Tuesday’s partial solar eclipse, the European Space Agency’s Proba-2 satellite captured this video of the Moon passing in front of the Sun from its position in low-Earth orbit. Taken in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light, best for observing details of the Sun’s corona,…
From the LITD Archives: Final Flight
Originally posted on January 6, 2010. A reminder that our solar system is a dynamic place, where gravity is the rule of the game and there’s rarely a prize for second place. On January 3, the European Space Agency’s SOHO solar observatory spacecraft captured images of a comet flying towards the Sun….and then disappearing into…
A World Turned Inside Out
Take a nice long look at this beautiful image of Io, the most volcanically active world in our solar system! This was assembled by Ted Stryk from Voyager 1 images, taken as the spacecraft passed by on March 4, 1979. At 2,263 miles (3642 km) wide Io is the third largest of Jupiter’s moons and…
Lights in the Dark 