Space

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SomebodyWakeUpHIcks wrote: »

Huge plot error Interstellar.

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Was it Matthew McConaughey?

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Haulani Crater Topographic Map




Haulani Crater (21 miles, 34 kilometers in diameter) is one of the youngest craters on Ceres, as evidenced by its sharp rims and bright, bluish material in enhanced color composite images from the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Haulani is also a good example of a polygonal crater.

This high-resolution topography map of the crater's floor and northern rim displays a prime example of pitted terrains. Those features were likely formed through the rapid vaporization of subsurface water upon impact, and suggest that there is abundant water in Ceres' crust. Pitted terrains have also been found on Mars and Vesta.

This topographic map was produced from the combination of images acquired under multiple illumination angles while the Dawn spacecraft was in its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of about 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface.

The colors represent elevations ranging from 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) below the surface to 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometers) above the surface. The center coordinates of the crater are 5.8 degree north latitude and 10.77 east longitude.

Haulani is named after the Hawaiian plant goddess.

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Southern Auroras Over Saturn



Cassini gazed toward high southern latitudes near Saturn's south pole to observe ghostly curtains of dancing light -- Saturn's southern auroras, or southern lights. These natural light displays at the planet's poles are created by charged particles raining down into the upper atmosphere, making gases there glow. The dark area at the top of this scene is Saturn's night side.

The auroras rotate from left to right, curving around the planet as Saturn rotates over about 70 minutes, compressed here into a movie sequence of about five seconds. Background stars are seen sliding behind the planet. Cassini was moving around Saturn during the observation, keeping its gaze fixed on a particular spot on the planet, which causes a shift in the distant background over the course of the observation. Some of the stars seem to make a slight turn to the right just before disappearing.

This effect is due to refraction -- the starlight gets bent as it passes through the atmosphere, which acts as a lens. Random bright specks and streaks appearing from frame to frame are due to charged particles and cosmic rays hitting the camera detector. The aim of this observation was to observe seasonal changes in the brightness of Saturn's auroras, and to compare with the simultaneous observations made by Cassini's infrared and ultraviolet imaging spectrometers.

The original images in this movie sequence have a size of 256x256 pixels; both the original size and a version enlarged to 500x500 pixels are available here. The small image size is the result of a setting on the camera that allows for shorter exposure times than full-size (1024x1024 pixel) images. This enabled Cassini to take more frames in a short time and still capture enough photons from the auroras for them to be visible.

The images were taken in visible light using the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 20, 2017, at a distance of about 620,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from Saturn. The views look toward 74 degrees south latitude on Saturn. Image scale is about 0.9 mile (1.4 kilometers) per pixel on Saturn. An animation is available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21623

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Uranus in True and False Color



These two pictures of Uranus -- one in true color (left) and the other in false color -- were compiled from images returned Jan. 17, 1986, by the narrow-angle camera of Voyager 2. The spacecraft was 9.1 million kilometers (5.7 million miles) from the planet, several days from closest approach. The picture at left has been processed to show Uranus as human eyes would see it from the vantage point of the spacecraft.

The picture is a composite of images taken through blue, green and orange filters. The darker shadings at the upper right of the disk correspond to the day-night boundary on the planet. Beyond this boundary lies the hidden northern hemisphere of Uranus, which currently remains in total darkness as the planet rotates. The blue-green color results from the absorption of red light by methane gas in Uranus' deep, cold and remarkably clear atmosphere.

The picture at right uses false color and extreme contrast enhancement to bring out subtle details in the polar region of Uranus. Images obtained through ultraviolet, violet and orange filters were respectively converted to the same blue, green and red colors used to produce the picture at left. The very slight contrasts visible in true color are greatly exaggerated here. In this false-color picture, Uranus reveals a dark polar hood surrounded by a series of progressively lighter concentric bands.

One possible explanation is that a brownish haze or smog, concentrated over the pole, is arranged into bands by zonal motions of the upper atmosphere. The bright orange and yellow strip at the lower edge of the planet's limb is an artifact of the image enhancement. In fact, the limb is dark and uniform in color around the planet.

Monkey_Business

Because it needed to be said.......

cee134

Monkey_Business wrote: »

Because it needed to be said.......

Space Bar the final frontier?

Monkey_Business

it could be, depends on what they are serving in their drink :-)

cee134

Sheet of Plasma



A sheet of plasma blasted out into space from just behind the edge of the sun (July 28, 2017). While some material escaped into space, a portion of it was unable to break the pull of gravity and the magnetic forces nearby and can be seen falling back to the sun. The 3.5 hours of action was captured in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light.

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Apollo 15 Mission image - View of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP)



(31 July 1971) --- Astronaut David R. Scott, commander, is seated in the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) during the first Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. This photograph was taken by astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot.

While astronauts Scott and Irwin descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Falcon" to explore the Hadley-Apennine area of the moon, astronaut Alfred M. Worden, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) in lunar orbit.

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Jupiter Storm of the High North



A dynamic storm at the southern edge of Jupiter's northern polar region dominates this Jovian cloudscape, courtesy of NASA's Juno spacecraft. This storm is a long-lived anticyclonic oval named North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1 (NN-LRS-1); it has been tracked at least since 1993, and may be older still.

An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon where winds around the storm flow in the direction opposite to that of the flow around a region of low pressure. It is the third largest anticyclonic oval on the planet, typically around 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long.

The color varies between red and off-white (as it is now), but this JunoCam image shows that it still has a pale reddish core within the radius of maximum wind speeds. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.

The image has been rotated so that the top of the image is actually the equatorial regions while the bottom of the image is of the northern polar regions of the planet. The image was taken on July 10, 2017 at 6:42 p.m. PDT (9:42 p.m. EDT), as the Juno spacecraft performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter.

At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 7,111 miles (11,444 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 44.5 degrees.

LittleLionHeart1

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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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The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi, a young, large and hot star located around 370 light-years away, is having a hocking effect on the surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope.

Monkey_Business

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Infant stars are glowing gloriously in this image of the Serpens star-forming region, captured by NASA Spitzer Space Telescope.
The reddish-pink dots are baby stars deeply embedded in the cosmic cloud of gas and dust that collapsed to create it.

Monkey_Business

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A View of the Painted Desert Near Mawrth Vallis



The clay-rich terrain surrounding Mawrth Vallis is one of the most scenic regions of Mars, a future interplanetary park, as seen by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Here, we cut a long, oblique view into strips to see the full color coverage in more compact form.

The origin of these altered layers is the subject of continued debates, perhaps to be resolved by a future rover on the surface. We do know that these layers are very ancient, dating back to a time when the environment of Mars was wetter and more habitable, if there were any inhabitants.

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Along the Floor of Coprates Chasma



This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a small portion of the floor of Coprates Chasma, a large trough within the Valles Marineris system of canyons. Although the exact sequence of events that formed Coprates Chasma is unknown, the ripples, mesas, and craters visible throughout the terrain point to a complex history involving multiple mechanisms of erosion and deposition. The main trough of Coprates Chasma ranges from 60 to 100 kilometers in width.

Monkey_Business

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Prometheus and the Ghostly F Ring



The thin sliver of Saturn's moon Prometheus lurks near ghostly structures in Saturn's narrow F ring in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Many of the narrow ring's faint and wispy features result from its gravitational interactions with Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across).

Most of the small moon's surface is in darkness due to the viewing geometry here. Cassini was positioned behind Saturn and Prometheus with respect to the sun, looking toward the moon's dark side and just a bit of the moon's sunlit northern hemisphere. Also visible here is a distinct difference in brightness between the outermost section of Saturn's A ring (left of center) and rest of the ring, interior to the Keeler Gap (lower left).

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 13 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 13, 2017. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Saturn.

Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel.