Astronomy Picture thread

[Perfection]

More from Cassini

Saturn's atmosphere

A nice Pic of Enceladus, I can't wait until they get the composite image created.

 

[Steve Thompson]

THANKS! - for getting these photos so I don't have to! I hate the interface on the ESA's site and NASA's isn't that great, and I don't like having to check out their sites myself because I'm just lazy.

I have a LOT of astronomy photos but they're on my PC so I can't put them on...

 

[Perfection]

I have a LOT of astronomy photos but they're on my PC so I can't put them on...

Why can't you upload them?


Just to post something, take a look at a big dark cloud

 

[Steve Thompson]

Well, my PC and internet connection are slow and I don't know how I would get a file on my PC onto a post anyway, I only know how to paste the URL of an image I see on the internet.

Anyway, here's 2 composite images of the most beautiful thing in the universe, literally!

If someone doesn't think the Eagle Nebula is beautiful, they obviously have no appreciation for anything!

 

[Babbler]

First (mostly) confirmed pic of an extra-solar planet:

 

[classical_hero]

The wonders of God's Universe. Here is the Milky Way Galaxy

 

[classical_hero]

Here is the Southern Cross. As seen on the Australian and New Zealand Flags. Look at the right of the first picture to see it. It can only be viewed in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

[Perfection]

Whoops... I bumped it again...

 

[Gothmog]

The golden wall or Cygnus wall, part of the North American Nebula:

A great shot from Cassini, the dark lines are shadows from Saturns rings and the moon is Mimas. The image has been adjusted to approximate the natural blue color of visible sunlight scattered by the gas giant's upper atmosphere.

A shot of a frozen patch of water ice in a crater on Mars taken by the Mars Express spacecraft in early February.

Finally, man brings spam to space.

 

[steviejay]

A shot of a frozen patch of water ice in a crater on Mars taken by the Mars Express spacecraft in early February.

is that for real? I've never seen anything like that before....

 

[Suki]

neither have I,

 

[steviejay]

whats the scale of that? how much water-ice are we talking about?

 

[Gothmog]

That's real indeed, there was nothing like it before February. The photo was released just over a month ago, here's the reference: Nature 435, 723 (9 June 2005)

and some text

Snapshot: Sunlight on an icy martian crater
Top of page
Abstract

First three-dimensional colour image reveals a frozen wonder.

This image from the Mars Express spacecraft shows a pocket of water ice nestling in a martian crater, bathed in the late martian summer sun.

ESA/DLR/FREIE UNIV. BERLIN (G. NEUKUM)

The shadow of the crater's rim, which towers 300 metres over the surrounding plains, prevents the ice from vaporizing in the planet's thin atmosphere. A dusting of frost survives inside the rim to the upper right, while the sun glimmers on its south-facing outer edge.

The 35-kilometre-wide crater sits 70° north of the martian equator, in a low-lying region known as Vastitas Borealis. Previous orbiters have spotted ice deposits in craters, but the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board the European probe is the first to return a three-dimensional colour image of an icy spot. The ice may be up to 200 metres thick, and lies over a dune field that has formed in the sediment on the crater's floor. The data were collected on 2 February, and this image was created for Nature last week.

 

[Perfection]

A recent Cassini Pic of Saturn's moon Hyperion

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1762

 

[steviejay]

that's beautiful in a strange kind of way

 

[slip79]

I luv that pic! This is an awesome thread.

 

[Fifty]

That last picture looks a lot like some kinds of sponges (as in the animal) I've seen. cool.

 

[Global Nexus]

The Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our sattelite galaxies.

The Triangulum Galaxy, one of the local group. It's a spiral, like the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, but is far smaller. It's supposedly more "average" in size for spirals, though.

The Whirlpool galaxy -- I couldn't find the pic I wanted, though...there's a pic of it somewhere with another nearby spiral. Maybe I should look beyond Wikipedia.

Absolutely love the topic! ^^

 

[Perfection]

Another Cassini Pic of a Saturnian moon, this is the small moon, Epimetheus

 

[Perfection]

Bump!

Another astounding Cassini Pic:

Dione

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07744