The 662-mile-wide Tethys is one of the most heavily cratered worlds in the solar system, tied with sister moons Rhea and Dione. In this recent raw image captured by Cassini on April 14, we can see some of the moon’s larger craters, including Melanthius with its enormous central peak.
Tag: solar system
Coolest. Sun Pic. Ever.
Alan Friedman does it again — and this time with a brand new camera! — in his latest photo of our home star, guaranteed to blow your mind. Check out the full image here. Image © Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Signs of Surprisingly Recent Volcanic Activity in Tycho
A team of researchers at India’s Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) claims it has found evidence of relatively recent volcanic activity on the Moon, using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Chadrayaan-1 spacecraft. According to the findings the central peak of Tycho crater contains features that are volcanic in origin, indicating that the Moon was geologically…
A Golden Oldie
Time to go “all way back” to 2006! In this Cassini image beautifully color calibrated by Gordan Ugarkovic we see the moon Mimas tucked into the shadow of Saturn’s rings. Nicknamed the “Death Star” moon, Mimas features a large crater with a sharp central peak, giving it a striking resemblance to the infamous sci-fi space…
MESSENGER Gets It “Donne”
Named after the 17th-century English metaphysical poet, Mercury’s Donne crater was captured in this image by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. The 53-mile (83-km) -wide crater features a large, rounded central peak and numerous lobate scarps lining its floor. What are lobate scarps? Find out more here.
Enceladus Sprays Its Secrets To Cassini
Enceladus, Saturn’s 318-mile-wide moon that’s become famous for its ice-spraying southern jets, is on astronomers’ short list of places in our own solar system where extraterrestrial life could be hiding — and on March 27, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was in just the right place to try and sniff it out. Why does Cassini team director…
Martian Hazard #271: Falling Frost Avalanches!
As spring comes to Mars’ north polar latitudes, the added sunlight warms layers of subsurface CO2 ice, which can rapidly sublimate and force its way outwards and upwards. When this occurs along the edges of steep scarps, as seen in the image above, the rapid expansion of the CO2 – literally ‘dry ice’ – can…
Two New Moons For Jupiter
Jupiter is our solar system’s resident behemoth. It’s an enormous planet that has more mass than all the others combined, not to mention the largest gravitational and magnetic influence in the solar system (besides the Sun, of coourse.) It’s no wonder that it also has the most moons in orbit around it than any of…
Giant Asteroid to Approach Earth Jan. 31
It’s huge – 21 miles across! It’s bright – magnitude 8.7, maybe more! And right now it’s coming close to Earth – the closest it’s come in 37 years! Why haven’t they told us about this?!? Well, actually they have. It’s asteroid 433 Eros, and on Tuesday it will come within 16.6 million miles of…
Why Did Pluto Lose Its Planet Status?
Why isn’t Pluto considered a planet anymore?
Spacecraft Discovers Mercury Truly Is a “Hollowed” Planet
…although not in the way some people mean by the term. 🙂 The latest featured image from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft shows the central peak of the 78-mile (138-km) – wide crater “Eminescu” surrounded by brightly-colored surface features called “hollows”. Actually tinted a light blue color, hollows may be signs of an erosion process unique to Mercury because of its…
Is Vesta a Planet Among Asteroids?
After nearly 5 months in orbit around Vesta, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has returned some incredibly detailed data about the composition and structure of what was once surely considered an asteroid. But now scientists are starting to have second thoughts about what exactly Vesta is… is it really an asteroid? Or is it more like a…
Lights in the Dark 