Planetary Picture of the Day
Week of July 22, 2024
We present all the different worlds this week - comet Halley, dwarf planet Charon, moon Titan, gas giant Jupiter, and even our own beautiful Earth!
Monday, 22 July 2024
Comet Halley Nucleus
This is the approximately 15-by-8-kilometer nucleus of Halley's Comet, imaged by ESA's Giotto spacecraft in March 1986 from about 2,000 km away. Comet 1P/Halley won't pass through the inner solar system again until 2061, which seems a lot closer now than back in 1986 after the last visit.
Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Charon
Nine years ago, New Horizons made the first (and last) flyby of the Pluto-Charon system. This is the best (half)-global image of Charon obtained by MVIC. It combines hi-res B/W images with color images at a lower resolution and is raw (regarding geology), as you can imagine. Yet, there is infinite poetry in how light shines on such a faraway world that we discovered so few years ago.
Wednesday, 24 June 2024
Beautiful Blue Marble
Earth as seen from the vantage point of the Meteosat-10 geostationary weather satellite 36,000 km above our planet. EUMETSAT’s Meteosat satellites are a key part of the global ring of geostationary weather satellites and observe the Earth over Europe, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Taken in natural color on 22 April 2024 to celebrate Earth Day.
Thursday, 25 July 2024
Titan's Polar Vortex
This true-color image captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before a distant flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on June 27, 2012, shows a south polar vortex, or a swirling mass of gas, around the pole in the atmosphere. "Warm" air goes up the sides, gets even colder, and sinks down the center. The south pole of Titan is near the center of the view.
Friday, 26 July 2024
Jupiter's String of Pearls
NASA's Juno captured this unusual and extraordinary view of Jupiter from the gas giant's southern hemisphere during perijove 32. The white storms are the so-called "strings of pearls". They are about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of Earth each.
