Stunning new snaps of Neptune and Triton
Here are a couple of views of Neptune as you have probably never seen the planet before. They were captured earlier today by astronomer Mike Brown using a 10-meter (33 ft) telescope at the W. M. Keck observatory on Hawaii.
The icy world dazzles in orange with some bright features in this infrared view, where the bright places are high clouds where the sunlight reflects off of them before it had a chance to pass through much of the atmosphere. Dark is clear atmosphere full of methane absorbing most of the photons. The second image is a wide-angle view and includes the largest moon Triton. If you compare the two images of Neptune you can see that the planet has clearly rotated between them. It turns once on its axis in a little over 16 hours.
Posts tagged "moon"
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Source skymania.com
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Apollo 17 Site: A Sharper View
Explanation: This view of the Apollo 17 landing site in the Taurus-Littrow valley was captured last month by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the sharpest ever recorded from space. The high resolution image data was taken during a period when LRO’s orbit was modified to create a close approach of about 22 kilometers as it passed over some of the Apollo landing sites. That altitude corresponds to only about twice the height of a commercial airline flight over planet Earth. Labeled in this image are Apollo 17 lunar lander Challenger’s descent stage (inset), the lunar rover (LRV) at its final parking spot, and the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) left to monitor the Moon’s environment and interior. Clear, dual lunar rover tracks and the foot trails left by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, the last to walk on the lunar surface, are also easily visible at the Apollo 17 site.
Credit: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State Univ. / Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Source apod.nasa.gov -
A list of all NASA´s current missions
It´s quite easy to get lost in the middle of the data NASA releases to the world on a daily basis. There are more than 50 missions right now under the agency´s supervision, all of them producing a myriad of amazing images and information about many different subjects such as sunspots, Earth´s atmosphere, Saturn´s moons, the birth of stars at distant galaxies and faraway asteroids.
To help us follow all that, NASA has listed all current missions on alphabetical order in a way that clicking on each one of them takes you to a specific page about the mission with all the data you need to understand all those probes, satellites, robots, telescopes and on.
(via weareallstarstuff)
Source itsfullofstars -
Cassini closes in on Saturn’s tumbling moon Hyperion
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured new views of Saturn’s oddly shaped moon Hyperion during its encounter with this cratered body on Thursday, Aug. 25. Raw images were acquired as the spacecraft flew past the moon at a distance of about 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers), making this the second closest encounter. [Read More]
Source physorg.com -
(via weareallstarstuff)
Source candycookies -
The rings of Saturn cast a shadow on the planet
(via sciencecenter)
Source ciclops.org -
The early Earth had two moons instead of just one — our familiar moon, as well as a smaller companion moon that also rose and set in the sky for tens of millions of years.
That’s according to a new theory that says this smaller moon eventually went careening into our moon and is still there, in the form of mountains on its far side.
Researchers believe that our moon was created when a giant object the size of Mars hit the early Earth, sending out a disc of debris orbiting our planet. That debris coalesced to form the moon, says Asphaug, but companion moons could have formed at the same time. (NPR)
Image: An artist’s illustration shows a collision between the moon and a companion moon. Scientists say the collision could be responsible for the moon’s asymmetric shape. (Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug/Nature)
(via spacephilosopher)
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Ziggurat of Ur, ancient Sumerian temple to the Moon god Nanna. At its peak, from approximately 2030 to 1980 BC, Ur was the largest city in the world with a population of around 65,000. Photo by Flickr’s The Outback Traveler.
Source ancientawe -
Source fuckyeahspaceexploration
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Stubby Shadow by NASAJPL on Flickr.
Saturn’s small moon Pan, brightly overexposed, casts a short shadow on the A ring in this image taken before the planet’s August 2009 equinox.
Source spacettf -
NASA’s Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite - temporarily designated P4 - was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.
The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).
Source itsfullofstars -
Rhea emerges after being occulted by the larger moon Titan.
Source futurgasm -
Saturn’s icy moon may have an ocean
According to the Cassini orbiter, Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have an underground ocean of salty molten liquid. The moon shoots ice from geysers that burst from fissures in the moon as confirmed by Cassini, which swooped to within 21 kilometers of the surface. The icy geysers are responsible for Saturn’s E Rings.
(via itsfullofstars)
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(via weareallstarstuff)
Source nevver -
Dione and Ghostly Titan
The surface of Saturn’s moon Dione is rendered in crisp detail against a hazy, ghostly Titan.
Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
Source ikenbot
![Cassini closes in on Saturn’s tumbling moon Hyperion
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured new views of Saturn’s oddly shaped moon Hyperion during its encounter with this cratered body on Thursday, Aug. 25. Raw images were acquired as the spacecraft flew past the moon at a distance of about 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers), making this the second closest encounter. [Read More]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqkiz3vB1B1qfsp07o1_1280.jpg)
