This soon-to-be historic image, released today, shows a glint of sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake on Titan. Taken by the Cassini spacecraft’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) in July 2009, the image has been extensively researched by scientists to make sure it was in fact a reflection off of a liquid…
Tag: solar system
Back in Action
“I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me. But I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again.” This mesmerizing video montage showing beautiful high-resolution views of Martian landscapes opens with the fortunate foreshadowing of today’s news that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has resumed full operations since being…
Off to Marquette
The rover Opportunity took this false-color photo of another possible stony meteorite dubbed “Marquette Island” on Monday December 7. These objects stand out on the barren sandy plain that Opportunity is currently traveling across on its way to Endeavour Crater and provide interesting targets for investigation. The rover has already used its Rock Abrasion Tool…
Fear and Dread
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has captured footage of Mars’ two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, passing each other in what is known as a “mutual event”. Although the moons themselves are in no special positions the images are noteworthy, being the first time the moons have been photographed passing each other. Mars Express’…
Details of Rembrandt
Within the 440-mile-wide Rembrandt impact basin on Mercury we find radiating fractures extending across a central plain and a younger sharp-edged crater, the tip of its central peak peeking into the sunlight. This impact basin was discovered by the MESSENGER spacecraft in October of 2008. It is one of the youngest impact basins on Mercury,…
Senkyo Very Much
This is a close-up image of Senkyo, a large region on Titan made up of dark dune fields. Regions like this are called “low albedo” , or low reflectivity, areas and they wrap around the moon’s equatorial region. The dunes may be made up of material that falls from Titan’s thick smoglike atmosphere. When weather…
In the Stream of Stars
Titan floats in front of a streaked backdrop of stars in this photo from Cassini, taken on November 30. The Cassini orbiter was nearly a million and a half miles away from Titan when it took this image. Typically images aren’t exposed to capture both moons and stars…when they are, the results can be fascinating….
Eye on Iapetus
Saturn’s moon Iapetus shows its bright (and lumpy!) side in this image from Cassini, taken on November 29. Like many people I know, 914-mile-wide Iapetus has a dark side and a bright side, its bright surface composed of water ice and rock and its dark half a coating of material, most likely from the newly-discovered…
Southern Dunes
Here’s an exceptionally beautiful image taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing rippling dunes within a crater on Mars’ southern hemisphere. The way the dunes are lit reminds me of a Salvador Dali painting, the central area reminiscent of the lower part of a human face. The brightest areas are…
Northern Exposure
This video shows the movement of energetic aurora over Saturn’s northern hemisphere, taken by the Cassini spacecraft over the course of four days. Saturn’s aurora is caused by the same process as found on Earth but the results are much, much larger…some of the lights seen here stretch nearly 750 miles above the edge of…
Mountains of the Moon
Taken by the LROC camera on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, this image shows a detailed look at the mountains within Cabeus Crater – the region where the LCROSS’ Centaur stage rocket impacted to send up a plume of water-rich lunar soil. Many of the shadows seen here are permanent fixtures. The Moon’s orbit…
Cold and Bright
After making its flyby early Saturday morning the Cassini spacecraft captured this full-sized view of Enceladus from a distance of about 83,000 miles. (Image has been level-adjusted to bring out surface details. Original raw image can be seen here.) 318 miles across at its widest point, Enceladus’ wrinkled surface is composed of water ice that…
Lights in the Dark 