Planetary Picture of the Day
Week of June 21, 2021
Jupiter and Io, a ghost nebula and a sunrise!
Monday, June 21, 2021
Sunrise from the International Space Station
A sunrise in space is something special. I like how it goes from very quiet with beautiful colors to what looks like a nuclear explosion (which is pretty much what happens in the Sun). That "nuclear explosion" is what brings life and energy to all our planet and also provides for all of our electricity up here! On Wednesday Shane and I are heading outside to install new solar panels to get even more energy from our star. The spacesuit comes with built in shades, looking at this series you can imagine why they are so important! We don't need to bring sun cream though; the white spacesuit takes care of that...
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
A beautiful triad of storms on Jupiter!
This composite image of Jupiter's south temperate domain was processed by Kevin M. Gill using five images taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft on 21 February 2021. JunoCam uses a wide-angle lens, which distorts images and makes foreground objects, like the cyclones, appear larger than they are in reality.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
The Ghost Nebula
This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic Camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. vdB 141 is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes referred to as the Ghost Nebula, its awkward name is its catalog number in Sidney van den Bergh's catalog of reflection nebulae, published in 1966. Several stars are embedded in the nebula. Their light gives it a ghoulish brown color. North is down and East is to the right.
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Jupiter and Io
This photo of Jupiter's satellite Io was taken by Voyager 1 on March 2, 1979. The spacecraft was about 8.3 million kilometers away. Voyager 1 was mapping Jupiter with the cameras and infrared instrument at the time the picture was taken. The hemisphere seen here is the one that always faces away from Jupiter. The smallest features are about 70 kilometers across.
Friday, June 25, 2021
Home from Above
The view from the fairing during the SES-10 mission. Welcome to a new age of space exploration!
