Space
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Ariadnes Colles
Iapetus, or occasionally Japetus, is the third-largest natural satellite of Saturn, eleventh-largest in the Solar System, and the largest body in the Solar System known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium.
Iapetus is a world of contrast, with light and dark regions fitting together like cosmic puzzle pieces.
Cassini Regio on Iapetus (914 miles or 1,471 kilometers across) is covered in a layer of dark, dusty material creating a stark contrast to the much brighter region that surrounds it. This leads to the moon's distinctive, two-toned appearance.
This view looks toward Saturn-facing hemisphere of Iapetus. North on Iapetus is up and rotated 20 degrees to the right.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 11, 2017.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.6 million miles (2.6 million kilometers) from Iapetus.
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Turquoise Swirls in the Black Sea
Most summers, jewel-toned hues appear in the Black Sea. The turquoise swirls are not the brushstrokes of a painting; they indicate the presence of phytoplankton, which trace the flow of water currents and eddies.
On May 29, 2017, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the data for this image of an ongoing phytoplankton bloom in the Black Sea. The image is a mosaic, composed from multiple satellite passes over the region.
Phytoplankton are floating, microscopic organisms that make their own food from sunlight and dissolved nutrients. Here, ample water flow from rivers like the Danube and Dnieper carries nutrients to the Black Sea. In general, phytoplankton support fish, shellfish, and other marine organisms. But large, frequent blooms can lead to eutrophication—the loss of oxygen from the water—and end up suffocating marine life.
One type of phytoplankton commonly found in the Black Sea are coccolithophores—microscopic plankton that are plated with white calcium carbonate. When aggregated in large numbers, these reflective plates are easily visible from space as bright, milky water.
“The May ramp-up in reflectivity in the Black Sea, with peak brightness in June, seems consistent with results from other years,” said Norman Kuring, an ocean scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Although Kuring does not study this region, the bloom this year is one of the brightest to catch his eye since 2012.
Other types of phytoplankton can look much different in satellite imagery. “It’s important to remember that not all phytoplankton blooms make the water brighter,” Kuring said. “Diatoms, which also bloom in the Black Sea, tend to darken water more than they brighten it.”1 -
Mimas Global Map - June 2017
This global map of Saturn's moon Mimas was created using images taken during Cassini spacecraft flybys. The moon's large, distinguishing crater, Herschel, is seen on the map at left.
The map is an equidistant (simple cylindrical) projection and has a scale of 710 feet (216 meters) per pixel at the equator. The mean radius of Mimas used for projection of this map is 123.2 miles (198.2 kilometers).
The resolution of the map is 16 pixels per degree.
The update includes new images for almost half of the moon's surface, with new images from two close flybys, in Nov. 2016 and Feb. 2017. The moon's western hemisphere, south pole and parts of the eastern hemisphere received updates in this version.1 -
Moon - North Pole
This view of the north polar region of the Moon was obtained by NASA's Galileo camera during the spacecraft flyby of the Earth-Moon system on December 7 and 8, 1992.1 -
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Northern Summer on Titan
NASA's Cassini spacecraft sees bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn's moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole.
Compared to earlier in Cassini's mission, most of the surface in the moon's northern high latitudes is now illuminated by the sun.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 9, 2017, using a spectral filter that preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 938 nanometers.
Cassini obtained the view at a distance of about 315,000 miles (507,000 kilometers) from Titan.
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Titan Halo
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Titan Pebbles
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Did you know that unfortunately no woman has ever visited the Moon?1
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MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »
Let's see. They have played golf on the moon, road around in a car, and collected rocks.... I guess you're right.
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Sorry if someone mentioned this already...
Cassini, a probe that's been studying Saturn and its moons since 2004, will finally end once it crashes, deliberately, into Saturn while transmitting data about the atmosphere and its rings this September. I've been reading about it for awhile and it's pretty interesting.
https://www.space.com/36608-cassini-last-titan-flyby-complete.html1 -
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Jupiter's Clouds of Many Colors
NASA's Juno spacecraft was racing away from Jupiter following its seventh close pass of the planet when JunoCam snapped this image on May 19, 2017, from about 29,100 miles (46,900 kilometers) above the cloud tops.
The spacecraft was over 65.9 degrees south latitude, with a lovely view of the south polar region of the planet.
This image was processed to enhance color differences, showing the amazing variety in Jupiter's stormy atmosphere.
The result is a surreal world of vibrant color, clarity and contrast. Four of the white oval storms known as the "String of Pearls" are visible near the top of the image.
Interestingly, one orange-colored storm can be seen at the belt-zone boundary, while other storms are more of a cream color.1 -
Henderson Island, South Pacific
Uninhabited Henderson Island is part of the United Kingdom's Pitcairn Islands group in the South Pacific.
According to a study by the University of Tasmania published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the island has the highest density of plastic waste anywhere in the world, an estimated 38 million pieces of rubbish.
The island is near the center of an ocean current, so it collects rubbish from boats and South America.
The image was acquired February 7, 2012, covers an area of 10.3 by 12.3 km, and is located at 24.3 degrees south, 128.3 degrees west.2 -
The White Cliffs of "Rover"
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is reminiscent of the rugged and open terrain of a stark shore-line, perhaps of an island nation, such as the British Isles.
A close-up in enhanced color produces a striking effect, giving the impression of a cloud-covered cliff edge with foamy waves crashing against it. The reality is that the surface of Mars is much dryer than our imaginations might want to suggest.
This is only a tiny part of a much larger structure; an inverted crater -- a crater that has been infilled by material that is more resistant to erosion than the rocks around it -- surrounded by bluish basaltic dunes. The edge of these elevated light-toned deposits are degraded, irregular and cliff-forming.
Dunes visible below the cliff, give the impression of an ocean surface, complete with foam capped waves crashing against the "shore line," demonstrating the abstract similarity between the nature of a turbulent ocean and a Martian dune field. Meridiani Planum has an overall smooth terrain, which starkly contrasts with the more common boulder- and crater-laden landscapes observed over much of the rest of Mars. This makes it relatively younger in character than many other areas of the planet.
Meridiani is one of the Mars Exploration Rover landing sites, and, is known for its layers and sediments. The orbital detection of hematite was one of the main reasons for sending Opportunity to this area. Salt-bearing rocks -- also called sulphates -- were observed in the very first image from Opportunity, so perhaps it's apt that this HiRISE image reminds us of the turmoil and rugged beauty of a cliff-face, a coastline, being worn down by a relentless sea.1 -
I often worry that the reason we haven't met the aliens is because the natural course is to invent a strong AI which destroys the creators and in turn runs out of energy before branching to the next energy node. That...we are behind a "Big Rift" that naturally washes out civilizations and their robotic descendants on a universal-wide basis.
That's why I love the optimistic space-movies.
***** MOVIE SPOILER "INTERSTELLAR" *****
"Let's travel across time and space to find Matt Damon and kill him"...
hahahahahaha.
That's so incredibly wrong but funny to me. I really like Matt Damon...he would get the joke. I kept hoping for them to unzip another bag on a different planet and for Ben Affleck to pop out.
Also...c'mon people. Look at this.
Let's go ahead and try out the planet which doesn't get it's light from a black hole first next time? Okie dokie? That has got to be some seriously bad Feng Shui.
/end space rant
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Mars Rover Opportunity's View of 'Orion Crater' (Enhanced Color)
NASA's Opportunity Mars rover passed near this small, relatively fresh crater in April 2017, during the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the moon. The rover team chose to call it "Orion Crater," after the Apollo 16 lunar module.
The rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) recorded this view, presented in enhanced color to make differences in surface materials more easily visible. The crater's diameter is about 90 feet (27 meters). From the small amount of erosion or filling that Orion Crater has experienced, its age is estimated at no more than 10 million years. It lies on the western rim of Endeavour Crater.
For comparison, Endeavor is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter and more than 3.6 billion years old. This view combines multiple images taken through three different Pancam filters. The selected filters admit light centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet).
The component images were taken on April 26, 2017, during the 4,712th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars. Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke flew in the Orion lunar module to and from the first human landing in the lunar highlands while Ken Mattingly orbited the moon in the command module, Casper. On the moon, Young and Duke investigated Plum Crater, which is approximately the same size as Mars' Orion Crater.1 -
The White Cliffs of "Rover"
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is reminiscent of the rugged and open terrain of a stark shore-line, perhaps of an island nation, such as the British Isles.
A close-up in enhanced color produces a striking effect, giving the impression of a cloud-covered cliff edge with foamy waves crashing against it. The reality is that the surface of Mars is much dryer than our imaginations might want to suggest. This is only a tiny part of a much larger structure; an inverted crater -- a crater that has been infilled by material that is more resistant to erosion than the rocks around it -- surrounded by bluish basaltic dunes.
The edge of these elevated light-toned deposits are degraded, irregular and cliff-forming. Dunes visible below the cliff, give the impression of an ocean surface, complete with foam capped waves crashing against the "shore line," demonstrating the abstract similarity between the nature of a turbulent ocean and a Martian dune field.
Meridiani Planum has an overall smooth terrain, which starkly contrasts with the more common boulder- and crater-laden landscapes observed over much of the rest of Mars. This makes it relatively younger in character than many other areas of the planet. Meridiani is one of the Mars Exploration Rover landing sites, and, is known for its layers and sediments.
The orbital detection of hematite was one of the main reasons for sending Opportunity to this area. Salt-bearing rocks -- also called sulphates -- were observed in the very first image from Opportunity, so perhaps it's apt that this HiRISE image reminds us of the turmoil and rugged beauty of a cliff-face, a coastline, being worn down by a relentless sea.1 -
Those blue basaltic dunes look awesome ^0
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NASA Galileo spacecraft took this image of Earth moon on December 7, 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97.
The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the image is the Tycho impact basin.
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Mineral Mapping the Moon
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Twisting Plasma Interaction
Several short stalks of cooler, darker plasma spun and twisted as they interacted with each other at the sun's edge (June 14-15, 2017).
The row of strands, which together form a prominence, were being pulled back and forth by magnetic forces. The dynamic action was observed for just over one day.
Also noteworthy is the rapid development of a bright active region in the upper right about halfway through the clip.
Movies are available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA217611 -
This shows the relative distance of the earth from the sun and their comparable sizes.
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SomebodyWakeUpHIcks wrote: »This shows the relative distance of the earth from the sun and their comparable sizes.
Ok, I laughed out loud.0 -
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MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »SomebodyWakeUpHIcks wrote: »This shows the relative distance of the earth from the sun and their comparable sizes.
All 4 earths even
On clear nights you can even see the red line.1
This discussion has been closed.
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