discoverynews: crookedindifference: Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) is seen here illuminated by light reflected off Saturn. Looks like a leaky ping pong.

discoverynews:

crookedindifference:

Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) is seen here illuminated by light reflected off Saturn.

Looks like a leaky ping pong.

jtotheizzoe:

crookedindifference:

NASA Probe Gets Close Views of Large Saturn Hurricane

Holy hell … that’s gorgeous (and false-colored, sadly).

From nasa.gov:

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red. In this scheme, red indicates low clouds and green indicates high ones. 

crookedindifference:

Top: The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Bottom: These false-color images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft chronicle a day in the life of a huge storm that developed from a small spot that appeared 12 weeks earlier in Saturn’s northern mid-latitudes.

spaceplasma: Hubble Sees a Horsehead of a Different Color 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. Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

spaceplasma:

Hubble Sees a Horsehead of a Different Color

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.

Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

(via birdwithapeopleface)

pappubahry: Eruption of the Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io, photographed by New Horizons, 1 March 2007, during its gravity-assist Jupiter flyby on its way to Pluto.  I’ve brightened the pictures so that some detail on the darker part of Io is clearer. The gif covers about 8 minutes of real time.  If you count pixels and look up Io’s diameter, it looks like the plume’s “only” being thrown up to an altitude of 200km or so.  But in fact the volcano is in the opposite hemisphere to the one we see here (albeit at a high latitude of about 67 degrees), and the plumes are reaching a height of over 300km. There is much more detail about this volcano at the Gish Bar Times blog.

pappubahry:

Eruption of the Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io, photographed by New Horizons, 1 March 2007, during its gravity-assist Jupiter flyby on its way to Pluto.  I’ve brightened the pictures so that some detail on the darker part of Io is clearer.

The gif covers about 8 minutes of real time.  If you count pixels and look up Io’s diameter, it looks like the plume’s “only” being thrown up to an altitude of 200km or so.  But in fact the volcano is in the opposite hemisphere to the one we see here (albeit at a high latitude of about 67 degrees), and the plumes are reaching a height of over 300km.

There is much more detail about this volcano at the Gish Bar Times blog.

(via fuckyeahtheuniverse)

ruineshumaines:

Erik Olson: Space.

(via facetednerd)

n-a-s-a: The Moon’s Saturn Image Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann

n-a-s-a:

The Moon’s Saturn

Image Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann

(via itsfullofstars)

shortformblog: breakingnews: Scientists work on fusion rocket for Mars NBC News: Researchers at the University of Washington say they’ve built all the pieces for a fusion-powered rocket system that could get a crew to Mars in 30 days.  “If we can pull off a fusion demonstration in a year, with hundreds of thousands of dollars … there might be a better, cheaper, faster path to using fusion in other applications,” John Slough, a research assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, told NBC News. … Timetables for the advent of fusion energy applications have repeatedly shifted to the right, reviving the old joke that the dawn of the fusion age will always be 30 years away. Photo: An artist’s conception shows a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. (UW / MSNW) Saturdays have become a veritable “this week in space” day around here lately, as last week we touched on the development of the solar-sail project “Sunjammer,” and this week brings exciting news on the Martian travel front. Of course, relying on fusion energy, this is still theoretical, and thus doen’t speak to anything assured — but isn’t it fun to daydream about a month-long jaunt to Mars anyhow?

shortformblog:

breakingnews:

Scientists work on fusion rocket for Mars

NBC News: Researchers at the University of Washington say they’ve built all the pieces for a fusion-powered rocket system that could get a crew to Mars in 30 days. 

“If we can pull off a fusion demonstration in a year, with hundreds of thousands of dollars … there might be a better, cheaper, faster path to using fusion in other applications,” John Slough, a research assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, told NBC News. …

Timetables for the advent of fusion energy applications have repeatedly shifted to the right, reviving the old joke that the dawn of the fusion age will always be 30 years away.

Photo: An artist’s conception shows a spacecraft powered by a fusion-driven rocket. (UW / MSNW)

Saturdays have become a veritable “this week in space” day around here lately, as last week we touched on the development of the solar-sail project “Sunjammer,” and this week brings exciting news on the Martian travel front. Of course, relying on fusion energy, this is still theoretical, and thus doen’t speak to anything assured — but isn’t it fun to daydream about a month-long jaunt to Mars anyhow?

How Far is it to Mars?

jtotheizzoe:

You’re gonna want to click this.

Trust me.

That’s far. (Dunno if it works on mobile)

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

We’ve touched a couple times on Saturnian storms, but this NASA video gives a great overview of the Great White Spot, a storm that appeared in late 2010. Gauging the fluid dynamics of gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter is difficult, in large part because we can see only the outermost portion of the atmosphere. Numerous theories and models have been suggested to explain features and dynamics that we observe, but much of the overall behavior remains a subject of debate among planetary scientists. (Video credit: NASA Goddard)

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