Planetary Picture of the Day
Week of May 20, 2024
Mars, Mimas, a massive Jovian storm... and the aurora as seen from Italy.
Monday, 20 May 2024
Massive, Icy Martian Crater
ESA's ExoMars orbiter caught a close-up view of a huge crater on Mars. This remnant of an ancient impact is just one of the many scars asteroids have inflicted upon the Red Planet. Water, volcanoes, and impacts from asteroids shaped the Martian surface in the ancient past, but the preservation of this impact is remarkable. The crater is located in Utopia Planitia and is about 8 km in diameter.
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
Phobos over Mars
This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity.
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Mimas Blues
Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn's northern latitudes in this true-color view. The long, dark lines on the atmosphere are shadows cast by the planet's rings.
At the time, Saturn's northern hemisphere was relatively cloud-free, and rays of sunlight took a long path through the atmosphere. This resulted in sunlight being scattered at shorter (bluer) wavelengths, thus giving the northernmost latitudes their bluish appearance at visible wavelengths.
At the bottom, craters on icy Mimas (398 kilometers) give the moon a dimpled appearance.
Thursday, 23 May 2024
Italian Aurora
Enjoy this aesthetically stunning picture and consider the latitude at which it was captured. This is Portonovo (45N), a small town near Mount Conero in the province of Ancona in Italy. (We had it pretty good in San Francisco - 37N with purple and green). This low latitude tells you the strength of that solar storm that just hit. In fact, aurorae were observed in the Caribbean! Before May 12, only the Carrington Event reached those latitudes...
Friday, 24 May 2024
Massive Jovian Storm
A massive storm, large enough to encompass most of North America, was spotted in Jupiter’s northern latitudes by NASA's Juno spacecraft on May 12. Juno is currently in its first extended mission and recently wrapped up close flybys of the Galilean moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.
