Blog Archives
Look Into the Blood-Red Eye of Saturn’s Polar Hurricane
The spinning vortex over Saturn’s north pole, imaged by Cassini. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
An incredible 1,200-mile-wide vortex of spiraling clouds swirling above Saturn’s north pole is seen in all its glory in this stunning image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, originally captured last year but recently released by NASA on April 29.
Taking advantage of a new orbital trajectory that puts it high above Saturn’s rings and poles, Cassini acquired the near-infrared images used to make this composite back on Nov. 27, 2012. The resulting image is false color — our eyes aren’t sensitive to those particular wavelengths of light — but still no less amazing!
Proof that Meteors Hit Saturn’s Rings… a Lot
Five images of Saturn’s rings, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft between 2009 and 2012, show clouds of material ejected from impacts of small objects into the rings. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
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 from about one-half inch to several yards (1 centimeter to several meters) in size.
“These new results imply the current-day impact rates for small particles at Saturn are about the same as those at Earth — two very different neighborhoods in our solar system — and this is exciting to see,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It took Saturn’s rings acting like a giant meteoroid detector — 100 times the surface area of the Earth — and Cassini’s long-term tour of the Saturn system to address this question.”
What would it look like to watch Daphnis fly past?
Maybe something like THIS:
Daphnis by Erik Svensson (All rights reserved)
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 article on Universe Today and was reminded of an illustration he’d made a year ago.
After contacting me about it, I felt Erik’s work definitely belonged in the article as well as here on Lights in the Dark!
Read the article on Daphnis here, and see more of Erik’s work here.
The Horsehead Nebula Like You’ve Never Seen It Before
New Hubble infrared image of the Horsehead nebula region. Click for a larger version.
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 April 24, 1990.
Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.
The nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud, located about 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Orion. It is one of the nearest and most easily-photographed regions in which massive stars are being formed.
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 full version below:
Research Reveals Rain Shadows from Saturn’s Rings
Saturn’s rings send a rain of water particles into its atmosphere, scientists find
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 particles from the rings interacting with the planet’s atmosphere, effectively cooling it and reducing heat emissions in those areas.
“Saturn is the first planet to show significant interaction between its atmosphere and ring system,” said James O’Donoghue, the paper’s lead author and a postgraduate researcher at Leicester. “The main effect of ring rain is that it acts to ‘quench’ the ionosphere of Saturn. In other words, this rain severely reduces the electron densities in regions in which it falls.”
How Far is Mars?
How far would Mars be if the Earth were this big? (Infographic by David Paliwoda)
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 nearly 361 million km or 224.3 million miles) and, back in 2003, Mars and Earth were at their closest in 50,000 years at a scant 56 million km/33.9 million miles apart. So on average, Mars is about 225 million km/140 million miles from Earth. Give or take a few.
For the sake of convenience, let’s say we reduced Earth to a sphere 100 pixels in diameter and you could travel outward at a velocity of 7,000 pixels/second (which is, to scale, about 3 times light speed) how far would Mars be? Find out here.
