Fantastic Photos Of Our Solar System
In the past decade, extraordinary space missions have found water on Mars, magnetic storms on Mercury and volcanoes on the moons of Saturn
We’ve been looking at other planets through telescopes for four centuries. But if you really want to get to know a place, there’s no substitute for being there. And in the past decade, more than 20 spacecraft have ventured into the deepest reaches of our solar system. These probes, unlike the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories that merely orbit Earth, have actually traveled to other planets and approached the Sun, sending back pictures that humble or awe, even as they advance astronomers’ understanding of our corner of the universe.
“The past decade has been spectacular in terms of achievements,” says Sean Solomon, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and a leader of recent missions to Mercury and Mars.
Last year, NASA’s Messenger mission gave us the first up-close view of parts ofMercury, the planet closest to the Sun. The spacecraft has found extensive ridges along the planet’s surface, made as it cooled and shrank over its four billion years. Messenger should nestle into an orbit around Mercury in 2011 and continue to study the planet’s geology and magnetic fields.
Pluto may not count as a planet anymore, but it has its own mission: NASA’s New Horizons, now en route and expected to arrive in 2015.
Laura Helmuth is a senior editor at Smithsonian.
The Sun: Plasma Flickers
A close-up, profile view of an active region in extreme ultraviolet light showcased several small spurts of plasma as they flickered out and retreated back into the sun over about 13 hours . This wavelength captures ionized helium at about 60,000 degrees not far above the sun’s surface. Flashes of small solar flares can be seen triggering most of these spurts.
Scientists Unveil First Ever Pictures Of Multiple Planets Around A Sunlike Star
The two giant worlds, each much larger than Jupiter, constitute only the third multiplanet system ever imaged
For the first time ever, scientists have managed to capture images of multiple planets twirling about another sunlike star. Yet despite its stellar hosts resemblance to our own, the snapshots of this planetary system reveal it to be no place like home.
Named TYC 8998-760-1 and located about 300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Musca, the star is similar in mass to the sun. Its two known planets, however, are distinctly alienorbiting their star at about 160 and 320 times the Earth-sun distance, respectively . Both worlds are supersized, compared with anything in our solar system. The outermost planet is some six times heavier than Jupiter, and the inner one tips the scales at 14 times Jupiters mass. Each of the worlds appears as a small dot around the star in images produced by the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research instrument, or SPHERE, which operates on the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope in northern Chile. The findings are detailed in a study published on July 22 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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All Categories / Astronomy / Solar System / All Solar System Pictures
The solar system consists of the sun and the eight official planets, as you can see below in our solar system images. Other aspects of the solar system include the dwarf planets, of which Pluto is now classified as, various satellites, not to mention the many, many comets and asteroids. The Sun is by far the largest object in our solar system and the solar system pictures below show the true extent of this. The birth of the solar system is still debated, but one thing not in doubt is its beauty, which is clear in the images of the solar system below.
Nasa Reveals New Webb Telescope Images Of The Solar System’s Largest Planet: We’ve Never Seen Jupiter Like This
The world’s newest and biggest space telescope is showing Jupiter as never before, auroras and all.
Scientists released the shots Monday of the solar system’s biggest planet.
The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.
1. Make way for the king of the solar system! New Webb images of Jupiter highlight the planet’s features, including its turbulent Great Red Spot , in amazing detail. These images were processed by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt:
NASA Webb Telescope
One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies. The smaller of the two moons measures just 12 miles across, according to NASA.
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement. He helped lead the observation. “We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest.”
“It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,” de Pater said.
The observatory is positioned 1 million miles from Earth.
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Faq: Which Spacecraft Are Headed To Interstellar Space
Five spacecraft have achieved enough velocity to eventually travel beyond the boundaries of our solar system. Two of them reached the unexplored space between the stars after several decades in space.
- Voyager 1 went interstellar in 2012 and Voyager 2 joined it in 2018. Both spacecraft are still in communication with Earth. Both spacecraft launched in 1977.
- NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently exploring an icy region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. It eventually will leave our solar system.
- Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 also will ultimately travel silently among the stars. The spacecraft used up their power supplies decades ago.
The Latest Pictures Suggest That The James Webb Space Telescope Will Be Useful For Work In Our Solar System As Well
The images show Jupiter and its Moon in a new light.
While the entire world was busy gushing over the flurry of images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope , the American space agency NASA also secretly released two new fascinating pictures of the gas giant Jupiter. The new images were taken by the Webb telescope, however, they are not formal, full-resolution pictures released in the style of the main releases earlier this week.
According to Sky News, the pictures were included in a NASA commissioning document to show that its NIRCam can track moving targets. The images show Jupiter and its Moon in a new light.
Take a look below:
Y’all – I promised and now I deliver. In today’s report “Characterization of JWST Science Performance from Commissioning” , Figure 1 is engineering data featuring Jupiter, including some moons and a ring! It’ll only get better from here, so buckle up!
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