Solar System

[Drone]

Anaglyph images of Lobate scarp in Aitken Crater (Moon)

 

[Drone]

new images from ISS

5 Planets And Moon From Southern Hemisphere (Taken by Denis Crute on February 2, 2016)

Methane Saturn

The soft, bright-and-dark bands displayed by Saturn in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft are the signature of methane in the planet's atmosphere.
This image was taken in wavelengths of light that are absorbed by methane on Saturn. Dark areas are regions where light travels deeper into the atmosphere (passing through more methane) before reflecting and scattering off of clouds and then heading back out of the atmosphere. In such images, the deeper the light goes, the more of it gets absorbed by methane, and the darker that part of Saturn appears.

The moon Dione hangs below the rings at right. Shadows of the rings are also visible here, cast onto the planet's southern hemisphere, in an inverse view compared to early in Cassini's mission at Saturn

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The Chinese space agency has made its library of high-resolution images of the moon available to the public for the first time.
Hundreds of images released this week show the incredibly uneventful, yet spectacular, lunar surface in detail and are some of the best pictures of the moon available.
China National Space Administration (CNSA) lifted the veil of government secrecy to showcase the wealth of images and video clips captured by its Chang'e 3 lunar lander and Yutu rover.

While the CNSA website is difficult to navigate - not to mention entirely in Chinese - the US Planetary Society has reposted the images from both Yutu and Chang'e 3 in accessible formats.

Writing on her blog for the Planetary Society, Emily Lakdawalla said: 'So far, the data center contains 797 unique observations from TCAM, and 578 for PCAM.

 

[Drone]

new NASA wallpapers: Enceladus and Dione

 

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The supermoon as seen in a radio telescope ...

Spoiler

photoshopped of course

 

[Drone]

Aurora

41-km wide crater named Sekhet on Ceres. A smaller crater at upper left is surrounded by a smooth plain, which probably resulted from seismic shaking during the impact that created it.

Earth blocking Sun

Tethys & Janus

Antoniadi crater is 140 km in diameter and rises 4 km. Some lunar mountains rise more than twice that height above the local terrain. The bottom of the small bowl-shaped crater tucked behind peaks in the center is the Moon's lowest point. It lies > 9 km below the lunar mean radius (comparable to sea level on Earth).

Phobos as observed by MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph. Orange shows mid-ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the surface of Phobos, exposing the moon's irregular shape and many craters. Blue shows far ultraviolet light detected at 121.6 nm, which is scattered off of hydrogen gas in the extended upper atmosphere of Mars. Phobos, observed here at a range of 300km, blocks this light, eclipsing the ultraviolet sky.

California Coastal Current

 

[Drone]

Close encounters with Jupiter and Solar Eclipse

These images from the Radar instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the evolution of a transient feature in the large hydrocarbon sea named Ligeia Mare on Saturn's moon Titan.

 

[Ahhzz]

Drone, I do appreciate you trying to keep us up to date with the scientific goings-on *cheers* mate

 

[Drone]

Drone, I do appreciate you trying to keep us up to date with the scientific goings-on *cheers* mate

Not a problem Archiving/spreading/sharing/ and most of all understanding new things is one of the coolest things

 

[Drone]

Beautiful image of aurora taken by Alan Dyer on March 3, 2016 @ Churchill, Manitoba.

Nostalgic [ Jan. 8, 2002] image (dedicated to SOHO's 20th anniversary) shows an enormous eruption of solar material, called a coronal mass ejection, spreading out into space.

Latest images of Sun (by SOHO and SDO) at different wavelengths

New images of Chaplygin crater (Chappy) (on the Moon) by LRO

The dark smooth material (bottom right) is solidified impact melt that originally pooled on the crater floor; the dark, middle and bright tones on the slope wall indicate various proportions of impact melt rock mixed with local regolith (soil).

Full LROC view of Chappy crater (1.4 km diameter) shrunk by a factor of 19x. Chappy's ejecta spreads out more than 10 diameters from the crater, much further than previously thought.

Close-up of ejecta on the western side of Chappy. Note the sharp terminations of flows, and the way that flows are diverted around small obstructions. The latter form shows that significant portions of ejecta traveled as a ground hugging flow, rather than on a ballistic trajectory.




Latest image, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows the rim of an unnamed crater on Ceres.

Today's VIS image shows where several channels join together. These channels are located in Terra Sabaea (on Mars)

 

[Drone]

Bunch of new stuff

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1108098532563265

From Spain and Portugal, over France to Moscow, on a cloudy night...

Video from Tim Peake's facebook

Pluto news from Geobeats news

Sun now

Btw don't forget partial solar eclipse tomorrow

And finally latest images of Mars by Curiosity and Opportunity

 

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Heavily-shadowed craters in the northernmost latitudes of Ceres are seen in this view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft.

Rhea (1527 km across) and Tethys (1062 km across) are medium-sized moons that are large enough to have pulled themselves into round shapes. They are both composed largely of ices and are generally thought to be geologically inactive today.

Sun today

Mars today

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Engulfed by clouds, astronomers are slowly beginning to get a glimpse of the surface of Titan.
Now, radar images from the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn have revealed just how much it changes.
They say the surface could be covered in waves, bubbling foam or something else altogether.

When imaging the flat - and hence radar dark - surface of the methane and ethane lake called Ligeia Mare, an object appeared in 2013 July just was not there in 2007,' Nasa said.
'Subsequent observations in 2014 August found the object remained - but had changed.
In a new image released last week, the mystery object seems to have disappeared in 2015 January.
The featured false-color image shows how the 20-km long object has come, changed, and gone.
'Current origin speculative explanations include waves, bubbling foam and floating solids, but still no one is sure,' said Nasa.

TITAN

'Future observations, in particular Cassini's final close flyby of Titan in 2017 April, may either resolve the enigma or open up more speculation.'
It comes amid a growing body of evidence that suggests there are waves on Saturn's moon Titan.
This is based on readings from Nasa's Cassini spacecraft, which is in orbit around the gas giant planet and its moons.
And, if confirmed, would suggest Titan is even more Earth-like than thought, with a surprisingly active weather system.
The evidence for the waves was reported by scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this week, reported Eric Hand for Science Magazine.
Based on flybys of Titan in the last six months, it seems that three separate seas of Titan may have waves on their surface.

The waves are not on 'watery' bodies like on Earth, but instead on lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons - composed largely of methane.
These are much more viscous than water on Earth, comparable almost to tar, so they likely move much less than our own oceans and lakes.
But regardless, any ripples on the surface - most likely waves - would have to be caused by wind, just like on Earth.
Spotting waves on the surface therefore suggests there is an active windy environment on Titan.
'To me, it's exciting,' said Nasa Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. 'It says that Titan is a dynamic place.'
Other results from Cassini also revealed the depths of some of its largest bodies.
Kraken Mare, for example, is thought to be 525ft (160 metres) deep, while Ligeia Mare could be up to 655 ft (200 metres) deep.
In addition, some estimates suggest Ligeia Mare could contain 55 times the oil reserves of Earth.
And as radar was able to bounce off the sea bottoms, it suggests they are transparent and made mostly of methane, about 90 per cent, rather than ethane.
The evidence is also a boost for those that think Titan has some form of seasonal changes.
This was further evidenced last month when scientists used a wind tunnel on Earth to explain the appearance of sand tunes on Titan.
Based on their research, they estimate there are winds on Titan, and they increase in speed by 50 per cent on rare occasions.
This may occur when parts of it tilt towards the sun, with increased light causing winds to kick up.

 

[Drone]

Mars today

Nostalgic image of the Sun

Sun today

 

[Drone]

Aurora. Image taken by Martin Guth on March 11, 2016

'Spooky' Lightning On Earth From Space

Sun today

Recent Solar eclipse from space

Mars today

Solar System model

 

[Drone]

Photo of Aurora by Marketa S Murray on March 15, 2016.

This magnetic map was created using the PFSS [Potential Field Source Surface] – model, a model of the magnetic field in the Sun's atmosphere based on magnetic measurements of the solar surface. The underlying image was taken in extreme UV wavelengths of 171 angstroms. This type of light is invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in gold.

Sandstone Nodule Beside 'Naukluft Plateau' on Mount Sharp, Mars.

This image is at the eastern edge of a very large deposit of wind-blown dust that occupies Ganges Chasma on Mars.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view of Saturn's moon Enceladus that shows wrinkled plains that are remarkably youthful in appearance, being generally free of large impact craters.

Ceres's bright spots

 

[Drone]

Sun today with new Active Regions

Spring Aurora and Airglow

Glaciers and lakes, Patagonia

Beijing at night from ISS

Mountainous terrain along the rim of Ikapati Crater, located in the northern hemisphere of Ceres

Mars today, new images from Opportunity and Curiosity

 

[Drone]

Cassini captures a crater duo on Saturn's moon Dione that is superimposed on older, linear features. The upper of the pair, named Italus, is overprinted on a grouping of ancient troughs called Petelia Fossae. The lower crater, Caieta, sits atop a feature named Helorus Fossa.

Solar storms are triggering X-ray aurorae on Jupiter that are about 8 times brighter than normal over a large area of the planet and hundreds of times more energetic than Earth's ‘northern lights’. CMEs compress Jupiter's magnetosphere shifting its boundary with the solar wind inward by more than a million miles.
The interaction at the boundary triggers the X-rays in Jupiter's aurorae, which cover an area bigger than the surface of the Earth.

 

[laszlo]

can't see all pictures even after refreshing page several times.... only me who have this problem?

 

[Drone]

^ This is an image/video heavy thread, maybe forum engine can't handle it. Try other browsers or load less pages.


New MARS images from HIRISE

Ancient Polar Ice Reveals Tilting of Moon

Polar hydrogen map of the Moon's northern/southern hemispheres identifies the location of the Moon's ancient/present day poles. In the image, the lighter/darker areas show higher/lower concentrations of hydrogen.

A cross-section through the Moon, highlighting the antipodal nature of lunar polar volatiles (in purple), and how they trace an ancient spin pole. The reorientation from that ancient spin pole (red arrow) to the present-day spin pole (blue arrow) was driven by the formation and evolution of the Procellarum [a region on the nearside of the Moon] associated with a high abundance of radiogenic heat producing elements (green), high heat flow, and ancient volcanic activity.

Jupiter’s ‘Northern Lights’ Caused By Solar Storms

 

[Drone]

Biggest update day ever. How in Solar System can I fit it in one post .. anyway here it comes:

New research suggests that some of Saturn's icy moons, as well as its famous rings, might be modern adornments.

Rhea and all other moons and rings closer to Saturn may be only 100 million years old. Outer satellites (not pictured here), including Saturn's largest moon Titan, are probably as old as the planet itself.

Titan in infrared

For some of the most important satellites [Tethys, Dione and Rhea] the orbits are less dramatically altered than previously thought. They must have formed not far from where they are now.

Saturn's moon Tethys, with its giant canyon Ithaca Chasma. Ithaca Chasma was opened by strong tidal forces [gravitational interaction with fluids deep in Saturn's interior] millions of years ago when Tethys was in an orbital resonance with the neighboring moon Dione.



Saturn had a similar collection of moons before, but their orbits were disturbed by a special kind of orbital resonance involving Saturn's motion around the Sun. Eventually, the orbits of neighboring moons crossed, and these objects collided. From this rubble, the present set of moons and rings formed.

The trio of ridges on Titan known as Mithrim Montes is home to the hazy Saturnian moon's tallest peak [3.3 km high].

Titan map

 

[Drone]

part 2:

Radar images of comet P/2016 BA14 were taken on March 23, 2016, by scientists using an antenna of NASA's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. At the time, the comet was about 3.6 million km from Earth. Radar images from the flyby indicate that the comet is about 1 km in diameter and it appears to spin around its axis once every 35-40 hours.

This image, acquired on Nov. 24, 2015 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the western side of an elongated pit depression in the eastern Noctis Labyrinthus region of Mars. Along the pit's upper wall is a light-toned layered deposit. Noctis Labyrinthus is a huge region of tectonically controlled valleys located at the western end of the Valles Marineris canyon system.

Frozen, former lake of liquid nitrogen, located in a mountain range just north of Pluto's informally named Sputnik Planum. At its widest point the possible lake appears to be ~ 30 km across.

Quebec Canada and Manicouagan crater

Sahara sands meet blue horizon.

 

[Drone]

Mars:

Sun

Earth

Comet P/2016 BA14

Really funny and amazing videos by Glyn Collinson (NASA scientist)

 

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Two moons hover above the rings from this perspective - Enceladus (504 km across), at left, and Janus (179 km across), at right.

Some Martian news:

Bad news for our good ol' Earth. Sea ice is melting, ice caps are shrinking and nobody knows why.

 

[Drone]

Sun today

Aurora

Mars today

Interesting theory about "nebular winter"