The shadow of Mimas falls across the Cassini Division in this beautiful natural color, wide-angle view from Cassini’s camera. Views like these are possible only once every 15 years, as Saturn’s spring and autumn equinoxes bring its rings and moons into horizontal alignment with the equitorial plane of the solar system and the light of…
Tag: solar system
A Featureless Face
This photo taken by the Messenger spacecraft in June of last year shows the ghostly pale and nearly featureless face of Venus, our sister planet. Shot in visible light and RGB-calibrated by Gordan Ugarkovic, the global shroud of Venus’ oppressive (and corrosive) atmosphere lacks the swirling detail seen in most photos of the planet, which…
King of the Gods
This image, taken over 9 years ago by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on its way to Saturn, is still hailed as one of the best photos ever taken of Jupiter. Actually a carefully crafted composite of 27 images, this image took more than an hour to capture. It later had to be painstakingly adjusted to account…
A Procession of Moons
With Saturn angled such that its ring plane is aligned with Earth’s orbit, its rings appear as a thin band and several of its moons can be seen crossing its face in this photo, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on February 24, 2009. The smaller moons closer to the rings are, left to…
A Cratered Crescent
The pocked and pitted surface of Mercury comes into view in this image from the Messenger spacecraft, taken during its approach on October 6, 2008. Messenger has one more flyby of Mercury to complete in September of this year before it finally maneuvers into orbit in 2011. It will be the first spacecraft to…
Saturn’s Southern Cyclone
A great spiraling whirlpool of wind-whipped clouds wraps around Saturn’s southern pole, photographed here in polarized infrared light by Cassini on July 15, 2008. Towering white clouds mark areas of rising heat from deep within the atmosphere. The winds around the vortex have been measured at over 300mph (480 km/h). This photo shows an area…
What Is Space?
This is a reprint of an earlier article of mine from March 8, 2008. I thought it would have a good home here. Hope you enjoy it. Are We There Yet? We’ve all seen the grade-school models of the solar system. Maybe you made one in science class. Out of painted styrofoam balls or colored construction…
Lights in the Dark 