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The rings have been a source of mystery since their discovery in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. There is not full agreement on how they formed, but among the possibilities are that they may have formed along with Saturn, or that they are debris of a former moon that strayed too close to the planet and was ripped apart.
The rings are now shepherded by the gravity of some of the planet’s surviving moons. Of more than 60 known natural satellites, two of the most fascinating are also pictured in this image: Titan and Enceladus.
At 5150 km across, Titan is 10 times larger than Enceladus, which measures just 505 km in diameter. Titan is seen as a disc because light from the distant Sun is being refracted through the moon’s dense atmosphere.
Somewhere on Titan’s surface rests the Huygens probe. On 25 December 2004, Huygens detached from the Cassini mothership and, a few weeks later, parachuted through the dense atmosphere to return the first pictures of Titan’s rugged landscape of icy mountains.
Although Enceladus is a smaller moon, it has as much character. The restless interior means that water constantly jets through cracks in the icy surface. In some images, these geysers can be glimpsed at the south pole.
The image was taken on 10 June 2006 in red light with the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera, and is orientated with north facing up. The spacecraft was some 3.9 million km from Enceladus and 5.3 million km from Titan.1 -
Investigating Mars: Ius Chasma
The VIS image shows part of the western end of Ius Chasma. Both the north and south canyon walls are visible in this image. At the top of the frame paired faults have created a graben. On the southern face of the canyon, several linear faults parallel the graben. These faults are part of the tectonic formation of Valles Marineris.
Landslides on both walls created deposits on the crater floor. The easiest to identify is the lobate margin at the right side of the images. Lobate margins and radial surface grooves are common features in low volume landslides. A landslide is a failure of slope due to gravity. They initiate due to several reasons. A lower layer of poorly cemented/resistant material may have been eroded, undermining the wall above which then collapses; earth quake seismic waves can cause the slope to collapse; and even an impact event near the canyon wall can cause collapse.
As millions of tons of material fall and slide down slope a scalloped cavity forms at the upper part where the slope failure occurred. At the material speeds downhill it will pick up more of the underlying slope, increasing the volume of material entrained into the landslide. Whereas some landslides spread across the canyon floor forming lobate deposits, very large volume slope failures will completely fill the canyon floor in a large complex region of chaotic blocks.
Ius Chasma is at the western end of Valles Marineris, south of Tithonium Chasma. Valles Marineris is over 4000 kilometers long, wider than the United States. Ius Chasma is almost 850 kilometers long (528 miles), 120 kilometers wide and over 8 kilometers deep. In comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is about 175 kilometers long, 30 kilometers wide, and only 2 kilometers deep.
The canyons of Valles Marineris were formed by extensive fracturing and pulling apart of the crust during the uplift of the vast Tharsis plateau. Landslides have enlarged the canyon walls and created deposits on the canyon floor. Weathering of the surface and influx of dust and sand have modified the canyon floor, both creating and modifying layered materials. There are many features that indicate flowing and standing water played a part in the chasma formation.
The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 71,000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars. THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions.1 -
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At first glance, I thought this was another thread about relationships. ("I need space....") I am pleasantly surprised.2
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Time-lapse Sequence of Jupiter’s South Pole
This series of images captures cloud patterns near Jupiter's south pole, looking up towards the planet’s equator.1 -
MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »@cee134 speaking of Jupiter, do you remember how much longer that storm spot will be around? I thought 30 years or something but I'm too lazy to look it up.
They don't know. Maybe 10 - 30 years. Maybe it comes back. Maybe something happens and it starts growing again.
We can't even predict the weather on our own planet.0 -
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Urvara and Yalode: Giant Craters on Ceres
This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the large craters Urvara (top) and Yalode (bottom) on dwarf planet Ceres. These features are so big that they must be observed from high altitudes in order to fit in the frame of a single image. Urvara is (101 miles (163 kilometers) in diameter, while Yalode is 162 miles (260 kilometers) in diameter.
The two giant craters were formed at different times. Yalode is almost 1 billion years older than Urvara, which is about 120 million to 140 million years old. Yalode's relatively smooth floor indicates Ceres' crust material became close to -- or even reached -- the melting temperature of ice as a consequence of the heat generated by the impact. On the other hand, the smaller Urvara has rougher terrain.
This suggests Urvara had either a lower temperature increase from the impact, or a colder crust temperature at the time of the crater's formation, or a combination of the two. Indeed, Ceres' interior was warmer in the past, and has been slowly cooling as its supply of radioactive isotopes, whose decay represents Ceres' main heat source, has been decreasing over time.
This picture also reveals geological details such, as the feature Nar Sulcus inside Yalode and a central peak in Urvara. Urvara is named after the Indian and Iranian deity of plants and fields. Yalode is named for the Dahomey goddess, worshipped by women at the harvest rites.
This image was obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on June 9, 2015. The spacecraft was then in its survey orbit (2,700 miles, 4,400 kilometers above the surface), when the footprint of Dawn's framing camera on Ceres' surface was about 260 miles (420 kilometers) across on Ceres' surface.
The resolution is 1,400 feet (410 meters) per pixel. The central coordinates of the picture are 43 degrees south latitude, 278 degrees east in longitude.1 -
MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »empresssue wrote: »
PLUTO DOESN'T CLEAN UP AFTER ITSELF
I'm thinking that makes it male
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MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »empresssue wrote: »MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »empresssue wrote: »
PLUTO DOESN'T CLEAN UP AFTER ITSELF
I'm thinking that makes it male
*Himself
So what is Pluto??? What's between a vertically challenged planet and a planet?0 -
New Horizons Sees Pluto Sept. 24, 2006
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MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »empresssue wrote: »MeeseeksAndDestroy wrote: »empresssue wrote: »
PLUTO DOESN'T CLEAN UP AFTER ITSELF
I'm thinking that makes it male
*Himself
So what is Pluto??? What's between a vertically challenged planet and a planet?
A cold celestial dwarf. According the International Astronomical Union a planet and a dwarf planet are not the same category
I know, so it's in between then if it's not a dwarf planet nor a regular planet. Is it a PLU-net?0
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