Planetary Picture of the Day
Week of November 20, 2023
Moons Titan and Callisto, the Sun, and a wallpaper of Pluto for your phone.
Monday, November 20, 2023
Space Station, Solar Prominences, and Sun!
Please enjoy this amazing shot of the International Space Station passing in front of the Sun. If you look closely, you can also see the Dragon capsule docked to the ISS (inset, upper right).
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Callisto Craters
This view of Jupiter's moon Callisto, captured by NASA's Galileo spacecraft on 25 June 1997, shows the 350-km-long Gomul Catena crater chain—the result of a comet that broke apart just before impact into what appears to be at least 26-27 separate major pieces!
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Above and Below
Taken in 2016, this stunning composite photo shows the Milky Way stretching above the Isar River in Germany as well as the stunning landscape beneath the river's surface. Photographer Johannes Holzer used a star tracker to capture the night sky and a Sony A7r in a water-case to get the underwater scenery. Both exposures took 300 seconds. We think you'll agree that the result is beautiful.
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Pluto Wallpaper
In this false-color image of Pluto, taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its July 14, 2015 flyby, different colors represent different compositions of surface ices, revealing a surprisingly active body.
Friday, November 24, 2023
Sunlight Reflecting Off a Lake
This image shows the first flash of sunlight reflected off a hydrocarbon lake on Saturn's moon Titan. The glint off a mirror-like surface is known as a specular reflection. This kind of glint was detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 8, 2009. It confirmed the presence of liquid in the moon's northern hemisphere, where lakes are more numerous and larger than those in the southern hemisphere.
