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The Moon sets behind the temple of Poseidon at Sounio
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Pac-Sun
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Mysterious Geologic Structure Seen from Space
Imaged Above: Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers snapped this photo of a lava crater in Mauritania from the International Space Station. Credit: ESA/NASA
A huge, copper-toned formation in West Africa dominates a mesmerizing photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.
Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers snapped this hypnotic image of the so-called Richat structure in Mauritania, as the space station flew over the Sahara Desert on the Atlantic Coast of West Africa. Erosion of the various rock layers created the ring-like features that make up the sprawling structure, but the origin of the Richat structure remains somewhat mysterious, geologists have said.
The photo shows Kuipers’ unique vantage point from the orbiting complex, which flies approximately 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth. The image was taken on March 7 using a Nikon D2Xs camera, officials at the European Space Agency said in a statement.
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Pictures of Saturn
1. A psychedelic view of Saturn. A composite image made from pictures taken by the Cassini spacecraft from a distance of approximately 511,000 miles (822,000 kilometers) from Saturn.
2. Saturn, The Lord of the Rings. A natural-color photograph of Saturn and its rings shot by Cassini spacecraft’s wide-angle camera from a distance of approximately 764,000 miles (1.23 million kilometers) from Saturn.
3. The Spectacular Rings of Saturn. A false-color image of Saturn’s main rings made by combining data from Cassini’s ultraviolet imaging spectrograph.
4. Saturn’s moon Rhea orbiting the giant gas-planet. Rhea is 949 miles (1,528 kilometers) across and it is the second largest moon of Saturn. This picture was shot by the Cassini spacecraft from a distance of about 700,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn and 422,000 miles (679,000 kilometers) from Rhea.
5. Saturn in infrared. An infrared view of Saturn and its rings captured by the Cassini spacecraft from a vantage point located 900,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) above the planet’s northern latitudes.
6. Rhea, gliding in front of Saturn. Captured by the Cassini spacecraft.
7. Saturn in false color. A false color, near-infrared, Hubble Space Telescope image of Saturn. The varying compositions and heights of its cloud layers are indicated by different colors. The clouds are thought to consist mainly of ammonia ice crystals. Tethys and Dione, two of Saturn’s moon can be seen as tiny dots in the upper right and lower left portions of the image, respectively.
8. The Dark Side of Saturn/Saturn Eclipse. A photograph of Saturn eclipsing the Sun, captured by the Cassini spacecraft on September 15, 2006. The dark side of Saturn is partially lit by sunlight reflected from its own rings. The rings themselves are lit by slight forward scattering of sunlight. In the high resolution image, the Earth is visible as a pale blue dot just above the bright main rings, on the left side of the image.
Credits: NASA, ESA, JPL/Caltech
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Spitzer Telescope Finds Hidden Jet
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope took this image of a baby star sprouting two identical jets (green lines emanating from fuzzy star). The jet on the right had been seen before in visible-light views, but the jet at left — the identical twin to the first jet — could only be seen in detail with Spitzer’s infrared detectors. The left jet was hidden behind a dark cloud, which Spitzer can see through.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The twin jets, in a system called Herbig-Haro 34, are made of identical knots of gas and dust, ejected one after another from the area around the star. By studying the spacing of these knots, and knowing the speed of the jets from previous studies, astronomers were able to determine that the jet to the right of the star punches its material out 4.5 years later than the counter-jet.
The new data also reveal that the area from which the jets originate is contained within a sphere around the star, with a radius of 3 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun. Previous studies estimated that the maximum size of this jet-making zone was 10 times larger.
The wispy material is gas and dust. Arc-shaped bow shocks can be seen at the ends of the twin jets. The shocks consist of compressed material in front of the jets.
The Herbig-Haro 34 jets are located at approximately 1,400 light-years away in the Orion constellation. -
Titan in color
Copyright: NASA/JPL/SSI/J. Major
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Saturn’s Icy Moon Dione Has Oxygen Atmosphere
A NASA spacecraft circling Saturn has discovered a wispy oxygen atmosphere on the ringed planet’s icy moon Dione, but you wouldn’t want to live there. For one thing, you wouldn’t be able to breathe — Dione’s atmosphere is 5 trillion times less dense than the air at Earth’s surface, scientists say.
Dione’s atmosphere was detected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which spotted an ultra-thin layer of oxygen ions so sparse that it is equivalent to conditions 300 miles (480 kilometers) above Earth. On Dione, there is one oxygen ion for every 2,550 cubic feet (90,000 cubic meters), but it’s still enough to qualify as an atmosphere, Cassini mission scientists announced Friday (March 2).
“We now know that Dione, in addition to Saturn’s rings and the moon Rhea, is a source of oxygen molecules,” Cassini team member Robert Tokar of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who led the new study, said in a statement. “This shows that molecular oxygen is actually common in the Saturn system and reinforces that it can come from a process that doesn’t involve life.”
Dione is one of Saturn’s smaller moons and is about 698 miles (1,123 km) wide. It orbits Saturn once every 2.7 days at a distance of about 234,000 miles (377,400 km) — roughly the same as that between Earth and its moon, according to a NASA description.
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10 Years of Gorgeous Images of Earth From Space
Ten years ago on March 1, the European Space Agency launched an 8-ton satellite called Envisat that would deliver back to Earth some of the most beautiful images of our planet taken from space.
Since then, Envisat has orbited Earth more than 50,000 times and has lived twice as long as planned.
The satellite has more than seven instruments on board that can use radar to see through clouds, capture ocean color and land cover, monitor the ozone layer and atmospheric pollutants, measure thermal-infrared radiation, and register surface topography.
To celebrate the satellite’s 10th anniversary, Wired has selected a few of its most beautiful images for this gallery. Good luck deciding which one to use as wallpaper for your computer desktop.
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GJ1214b, shown in this artist’s view, is a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show that it is a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. GJ 1214b represents a new type of planet, like nothing seen in the solar system or any other planetary system currently known.
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NASA Launches Rocket Into Northern Lights
Astronomers recently sent a 46-foot rocket sailing through the shimmering green band of energy known as aurora borealis, or the northern lights.
The NASA-funded mission launched on the frigid night of Feb. 18 from the Poker Flat Research Range, 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The rocket, called the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfvén resonator (MICA), arced 200 miles upward and plunged directly into the lights.
Auroras occur when charged particles emanating from the sun hit Earth’s upper atmosphere, producing light. Instruments aboard MICA probed the electric and magnetic fields that arise from this collision, collecting data for 10 minutes before falling back to Earth.
The recorded information will help researchers understand how the charged particles, collectively known as the solar wind, affect Earth. Such data is important because the sun is currently entering a period of increased activity and electromagnetic storms can affect satellites orbiting the Earth.