Feb 22, 2013
Beautiful Mercury Colors This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER's primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would...
View ArticleFeb 23, 2013
Strange Cones on Mars A CTX image shows topographic cones in local depressions on Mars. What are these and how did they form? This image reveals "rootless cones," which form on lava flows that interact...
View ArticleFeb 24, 2013
Glowing Gas in the Omega Nebula This image is a colour composite of the Omega Nebula (M 17) made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The field of view is approximatelly 4.7 x 3.7...
View ArticleFeb 25, 2013
Young Star's Jet This image shows an object known as HH 151, a bright jet of glowing material trailed by an intricate, orange-hued plume of gas and dust. It is located some 460 light-years away in the...
View ArticleFeb 26, 2013
Hot Space Bubble XMM-Newton EPIC (blue) and CTIO optical H-alpha (red) and [O III] (green) images of the bubble S308 around the Wolf-Rayet star HD 50896. The large angular size of this WR bubble...
View ArticleFeb 27, 2013
Scarred Face of Phobos The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA spacecraft Mars Express took this image of Phobos using the HRSC nadir channel on 7 March 2010, HRSC Orbit 7915. This...
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Europa
Europa: Icy Abode of Life The awesomeness of Jupiter's moon Europa comes almost entirely from one word: life. No one would expect this frozen body in the outer solar system to be a veritable oasis but...
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Hyperion: Land of the Honeycomb Gaze upon the insane face of Hyperion. This tiny, irregular moon of Saturn is covered in deep, sharp-edged craters that make it look like a giant angry space wasp nest....
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Triton: Geysers at the Solar System's Edge Though moons like Enceladus hog all the attention, Neptune's moon Triton gets no love despite having shooting geysers and active tectonics while orbiting at...
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Iapetus
Iapetus: A Cranky, Mysterious Moon Planet: Saturn Diameter: 1468 km Date of Discovery: 1671 (Giovanni Domenico Cassini) Most Bad-Ass feature: Huge, mysterious equatorial mountain range Two-toned...
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Io
Io: The Realm of Raging Volcanoes Planet: Jupiter Diameter: 3642 km Date of Discovery: 1610 (Galileo Galilei) Most Bad-Ass feature: It’s a moon. With hundreds of active volcanoes. You think saltwater...
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Phoebe
Phoebe: The Black Sheep Planet: Saturn Diameter: 212 km Date of Discovery: 1898-1899 (W.H. Pickering) Most Bad-Ass feature: It creates a huge, nearly invisible ring around Saturn. Phoebe is the rogue...
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The Moon
The Moon: Earth's Constant Companion Planet: Earth Diameter: 3474 km Date of Discovery: Unknown. Most Bad-Ass feature: It’s the only extraterrestrial object humans have walked on. About 4.5 billion...
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Titan
Titan: Seasons, Lakes and Life Planet: Saturn Diameter: 5150 km Date of Discovery: 1655 (Christiaan Huygens) Most Bad-Ass feature: Enormous, hydrocarbon-filled seas with names like Kraken Mare Titan...
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Enceladus
Enceladus: Giant Plumes of Life (Maybe) Planet: Saturn Diameter: 504 km Date of Discovery: 1789 (William Herschel) Most Badass Feature: Cryovolcanoes The argument for Enceladus being Saturn's most...
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Mimas
The solar system is stuffed with mighty moons. Some are tiny, some are enormous. One is a raging volcanic inferno, others create rings around their planets. One has a giant ocean that could be home to...
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Charon
Charon: The Almost-Planet (Dwarf) Planet: Pluto Diameter: 1,206 km Date of Discovery: 1978 (James W. Christy) Most Badass Feature: The main moon of an inherently badass planet Named after the...
View ArticleFeb 28, 2013
Galactic Gravity Tug-of-War This image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile captures the pair of galaxies NGC 3169 (left) and NGC 3166...
View ArticleMar 1, 2013
Star Power Nebulae vdB 38 and Sh2-263 (the blue and red components respectively) are being made to glow by the unadulterated power of star SAO 112667. This star, near the shoulder of Orion, can dimly...
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