(News from NASA) NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn’s rings. These observations make Saturn’s rings the only location besides Earth, the Moon and Jupiter where meteor impacts have been observed as they occur. The meteoroids at Saturn are estimated to range…
Tag: space
What would it look like to watch Daphnis fly past?
Maybe something like THIS: What a great combination: Daphnis (my favorite moon) and an artist’s interpretation of what it might look like to see it whiz past as it travels around Saturn inside the Keeler Gap, sending up waves in the rings as it goes! The image is by Erik Svensson, who came across my recent…
The Horsehead Nebula Like You’ve Never Seen It Before
Holy Horsehead, Batman! You’ve probably seen photos of the famous Horsehead nebula in Orion many times before, but NOTHING like this! Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory’s launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on…
50 Unbelievable Facts About Earth: an Infographic
Do you know how long a tardigrade can survive in space? How much gold is in seawater? How long it’s been since it rained in Antarctica’s Dry Valleys? There are a whole lot of amazing facts about our planet and this infographic has 50 of them (and while seemingly unbelievable, they’re all true!) See the…
Research Reveals Rain Shadows from Saturn’s Rings
A rain of ionized water molecules falls into Saturn’s upper atmosphere from its rings, researchers from England’s University of Leicester have found. Using images from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft and more recent near-infrared observations from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, it has been found that dark bands seen across Saturn are actually the “rain shadows” of…
How Far is Mars?
How far away is Mars? The exact answer varies, of course, as both it and our planet are constantly moving along their own orbits around the Sun. At the time of this writing Mars is on the other side of the Sun from us, 2.413 AU away as the space crow flies (which equates to…
Space Book Alert: Your Ticket to the Universe
Every once in a while an astronomy book comes out that combines stunning high-definition images from the world’s most advanced telescopes, comprehensive descriptions of cosmic objects that are both approachable and easy to understand (but not overly simplistic) and a gorgeous layout that makes every page spread visually exciting and enjoyable. This is one of those books.
Enceladus is Spraying Its Salty Sea Out Into Space
Thanks to Cassini we’ve known about the jets of icy brine spraying from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus for about 8 years now, but this week it was revealed at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference outside Houston, Texas that Enceladus’ jets very likely reach all the way down to the sea — a salty…
A Clear Blue Sky on Mars
There’s nothing like a beautiful sunny day in Gale crater! The rusty sand crunching beneath your wheels, a gentle breeze blowing at a balmy 6º C (43º F), Mount Sharp rising in the distance into a clear blue sky… wait, did I just say blue sky? Yes I did. But no worries — Mars hasn’t…
Highlighting Rhea’s Subtle Colors – New Cassini Images of Saturn’s Moon
This is a color composite image of Rhea (pronounced REE-ah) I made from raw images acquired by the Cassini spacecraft on March 9, 2013, during its most recent — and final — close pass of the moon. The visible-light colors of Rhea’s frozen surface have been oversaturated to make them more apparent… even so, it’s…
The Colors of Saturn’s Northern Skies
Bored by blue? Saturn’s skies sure do have a lot more colors, as seen here in a color-somposite made from raw Cassini images acquired on Feb. 27, 2013. With spring progressing on Saturn’s northern hemisphere (a season that takes 7 1/2 Earth years to pass!) the upper latitudes gradually receive more sunlight and thus more…
The Sun is Awesome
It really is. I mean, nevermind that it contains 99% of all the mass in the Solar System, that it supplies our planet with the energy needed to sustain life, that its constantly-blowing solar wind helps keep some of those nasty cosmic particles out of the planetary neighborhood, and that it makes a bright sunshiny…
Lights in the Dark 