Fantastic Photos of our Solar System
In the past decade, extraordinary space missions have discovered new features of the Sun, the planets and their moons.
The Cassini spacecraft, which is now orbiting Saturn, looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other. The rings of Saturn light up so much that new rings were discovered.
Saturnian moons Titan and Tethys in clear view as the shadow of Saturn darkens the far arm of the rings.
In this image from the SOHO satellite, a “prominence” erupts from the Sun.
This is a composite image of the Sun from three wavelengths. It reveals the solar features unique to each wavelength.
This image shows a coronal mass ejection around the Sun as it blasts billions of particles millions of miles per hour into space. The image of the Sun was enlarged and superimposed.
The Sun erupts in flares (as seen through a SOHO ultraviolet telescope.)
This image shows a variety of loops and active regions. The lighter areas on the surface of the Sun are the active regions.
This image of the Sun was captured by the Hinode satellite. It shows the moon traversing the face of the sun during a solar eclipse on July 22, 2009.
A composite image of multiple solar flares on the Sun.
At Victoria Crater on Mars, the rover Opportunity examined samples of sedimentary rock
More than three billion years ago, Mercury was slammed by an asteroid or comet that created the Caloris Basin (the vast golden area). Volcanoes erupted at the crater’s edges.
The Galileo spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Visible are ice, cracks that run to the horizon and dark patches that most likely contain ice and dirt.
In this image of Jupiter’s moon Io, two sulfurous eruptions are visible
West of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is this turbulent region captured by the Galileo spacecraft.
This image is a closeup of the ice crust in the Conamara region of Jupiter’s moon Europa
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Source:
Fantastic Photos of our Solar System
Laura Helmuth
Smithsonian magazine, October 2009
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Out-of-This-World.html##ixzz0SYEMx0VE
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Out-of-This-World.html#
October 1st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Great…thanks for this post. If anyone else is interested, the History channel, on Tuesdays has a wonderful series on the universe. This week was on all the different rings on the outer gas giants in our solar system, and it was grand! Also talks about black holes, gamma ray sources, galaxy collisions, dark energy, the whole enchilada…I am a nut about this sort of thing, though…
October 1st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Barry, this is is the good stuff but don’t forget how good some of us backyard astronomers are, too.
Here’s likely my dest image of Mars, October 2005.
http://loprestifarm.com/images/mars1002_2005_0026_cropped.jpg
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:16 am
[...] Awesome new photographs of our solar system Cool Stuff 2nd October 2009 – By Andrew The Big Picture has published a collection of new photographs taken of our solar system. [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:16 am
[...] Fantastic Photos of our Solar System | The Big Picture [...]
October 4th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
[...] One site I ran across had some wonderful no beautiful pictures of the solar system it was call Fantastic Photos of the Solar System. [...]
October 5th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
[...] This picture is just awesome. Taken from the Cassini space craft that is orbiting Saturn. It was taken when Saturn was eclipsing the sun. Via The Big Picture [...]