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#126 2004-08-24 00:35:56

Euler
Member
From: Corvallis, OR
Registered: 2003-02-06
Posts: 922

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Better yet, use a telescope. Through the eyepiece Uranus looks star-like, a speck, but using a CCD camera, you can resolve the planet's disk..."

It should look a bit like http://www.eso.org/outreach/gallery/vlt … .html]this.

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#127 2004-08-24 06:18:29

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Better yet, use a telescope. Through the eyepiece Uranus looks star-like, a speck, but using a CCD camera, you can resolve the planet's disk..."

It should look a bit like http://www.eso.org/outreach/gallery/vlt … .html]this.

*Hi Euler:  Thanks.  Nice image and short article.  I love the names "Titania" and "Puck" for moons.  IIRC, Titania was a Faerie Queen and Puck was a mischievous and prankish (albeit -not- malicious) bit of a character.  I wonder if they still celebrate the Puck Festival in Ireland?  :hm:  IIRC, a little goat was named Puck King for a day or whatever; I have a book somewhere in my closet with a picture (from decades ago) of one of the Puck Festivals.  A little girl was feeding a bit of hay (?) to a small young goat wearing a crown on its head.  smile 

-*-

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … tml]Cosmic Forecast?  Partly Cloudy!

*Spectacular image; soft purples and blues.  Taken by an amateur astronomer with the help of a pro via Kitt Peak's program (link at the bottom).  Enviable!  Three images stitched together.  Looks like they did a fine job of it.

Such a rich field.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#128 2004-08-24 11:56:21

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/e … Extrasolar planet detected w/small backyard 'scope

*Geez!  Incredible.  Is a "Super Jupiter" type planet.  Check out the size of the 'scope.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#129 2004-08-25 16:10:00

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#130 2004-09-02 10:45:48

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … 292004]200 million Suns bright

*Hubble image.  This supernova discovered by a Japanese amateur astronomer in August, who used a small telescope at the time!  Supernova resides "on the outskirts" of galaxy NGC 2403, which is 11 million light years away.

Article notes this is the nearest supernova seen in more than a decade.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#131 2004-09-03 13:39:20

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/040903_ … ml]Mercury back in sight!

*I didn't know that, in ancient times, it had a double name:  It was called "Mercury" when visible in the evenings and "Apollo" when visible before sunrise.  Pythagoras is attributed as having pointed out it was the same planet. 

Here's an interesting item about rotation and orbit which others have tried to describe before, but this is the best explanation of this phenomenon I've yet seen (and I don't say that insultingly...I doubt I could explain it adequately either!):

"Mercury rotates on its axis three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. But when it arrives at perihelion (as it will on September 13) Mercury’s orbital velocity will exceed its rotational speed. As a consequence, a hypothetical observer standing on Mercury would see a sight unique in our entire solar system. Over the course of eight days (fours days before perihelion to four days after perihelion), the Sun would appear to reverse its course across the sky, then double back and resume its normal track across the sky.

If our observer were located on that part of Mercury where the Sun were to rise around the time of perihelion, the Sun would appear to partially come up above the eastern horizon, pause and then drop back below the horizon, followed in rapid succession by a second sunrise!"

*That would be something to see.  smile  Too bad we're stuck on 1 planet (for now), and with such short lives.  :*(

Article says between now and Sept. 23, " All you have to do is just look low above the eastern horizon during morning twilight, from about 30 to 45 minutes before sunrise for a bright yellowish-orange 'star.'"

--Cindy

P.S.:  I probably won't get to see the little bugger because of the mountain ranges to the east of where I live.


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#132 2004-09-07 07:43:11

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

*New finds (and technical abstracts):

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … iter-sized planet found transiting bright K0V star

Hot]http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=13885]"Hot Saturn" planet orbiting HD 88133

"The N2K consortium is carrying out a distributed observing campaign with the Keck, Magellan and Subaru telescopes, as well as the automatic photometric telescopes of Fairborn Observatory, in order to search for short-period gas giant planets around metal-rich stars..."

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040905.html]New view of a "golden oldie"

Digital combination from Kitt Peak and Hubble.  Looks like a wreath of roses woven throughout.  :;):

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#133 2004-09-07 14:36:32

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … agnificent!

*The Stingray Nebula.

It has the honor of being *the youngest known planetary nebula*; 25 years ago it wasn't visible in the sky, according to the article. 

Lovely "inward folding" at each "corner."  It also looks like a greenish opal tucked in a ring setting.

"The Stingray Nebula is an 'infant' in relative terms, because only within the past 25 years did its central star rapidly heat up enough to make the nebula glow. While stars typically exist for millions of years, the transition to a visible planetary nebula takes only about 100 years — the blink of an eye compared to a star's lifetime - which is why no younger planetary nebulae have ever been identified."

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#134 2004-09-09 08:50:03

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … ml]Blowing bubbles and rings

*Not a "new" find...but a new view of it, courtesy of (what else?) Hubble.  Definitely the loveliest image of it yet.

Revealing new detail of a series of concentric rings.

"The concentric rings are actually shells or bubbles of expelled gas and dust, only their edges being evident. The new view, released today, reveals at least 11 of these bubbles, seen like layers of an onion when sliced in half...

Scientists have only recently learned that the formation of these rings is likely to be the rule rather than the exception with planetary nebulas. That is a surprise, because researchers didn't expect dying stars to expel mass at regular intervals."

--Cindy  smile

::edit::  http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040910.html]Astropix  Details seem clearer and crisper via Astropix hosting.


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#135 2004-09-10 07:14:29

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040909.html]Triple Delight

*Ah, the lovely Lagoon Nebula.  With the Trifid's blue and red beneath it.  When I die, I'll take the Grand Tour of the Universe...and this will definitely be a priority on the itinerary.   :;):

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#136 2004-09-10 08:04:27

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,325

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Photo may be first of extrasolar planet
A group of European-led astronomers has made a photograph of what appears to be a planet orbiting another star. If so, it would be the first confirmed picture of a world beyond our solar system.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/09/1 … index.html

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#137 2004-09-15 07:52:32

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.jupitertoday.com/news/viewsr … 879]Atomic chlorine detected in Io's atmosphere

*Hubble and Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph used. 

Erm...report's a bit technical.  roll

By the way, that's a pic of the caldera of Tupan Patera on Io.

-*-

http://www.jupitertoday.com/news/viewsr … =13933]1st observation of Jupiter by XMM-Newton

Interesting about Jupiter's auroral emissions...

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#138 2004-09-15 09:19:38

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/jupiter- … tml]Beware:  Io Dust!

*This is a fantastic article.  :up:  A definite "must-read."

Also mentions Jupiters]http://www.saturntoday.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9775]Jupiter's dark rings.  (That article has been posted previously by me...I rarely repost a link, but this is a worthy exception).

The interaction of Io's ash/dust, Jupiter's gravity, magnetism, velocity -- what a story.  :band:

--Cindy

P.S.:  Seems so much of what I'm reading today deals either with Jupiter itself or the Jovian system.  -laugh-


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#139 2004-09-16 06:34:14

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … 71]Testing for the "Pioneer anomaly" on Pluto mission?

*Short and sweet article.  cool

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#140 2004-09-20 07:19:03

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

*BEFORE you read the caption beneath the photo, what do you think it is?  (When I download the page, only the photo can be seen...must scroll down to read the caption.)

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … 0.html]The Firefly

Not a "new discovery," but didn't want to start a new thread.  First such pic I've seen.  Eerie but very beautiful.  Nice "aside of sorts" to our usual chit-chat at New Mars.  Nice to get another peek at goings-on through astronauts' eyes.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#141 2004-09-20 08:12:29

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

I peeked, I admit it!   sad

    I couldn't help it (sob). I stared at the picture for nearly (sniffle) a whole minute ... you have to believe me, I didn't want to do it. (sob). My eyes wandered down to the text .. and before I knew what was happening (blub), I'd read it! ... I'm a cheat and a failure ...  WAAAHHH!!!!!
                                 :bars:


                                                tongue    :laugh:


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#142 2004-09-20 11:29:28

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

*Hmmmm...does someone here drink too much caffeine before turning in for the night?  Nightmares about The Firefly...  :hm:  I hope not. 

I never could have guessed what it was...which is why I suggested others give it a shot first.  wink

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010205.html]The Ant Nebula

*They should rename it The Conjoined Jellyfish Nebula.  tongue
Delicate colors.  And that rich star field!  Nice pic.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010214.html]
Rosette Nebula

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0003 … Reflection nebula in Orion

*Reminds me of the silhouette of a man...shoulders, neck, head.  This is the largest image of it I've yet seen.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#143 2004-09-20 17:13:05

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Yeah. I couldn't figure out what that picture was either.
    At first, I wondered whether it was an overexposed shot of Venus in the sky, with someone's head silhouetted against it. But I couldn't work out what the long thin thing was, sticking out of the person's head!   big_smile

    Hence the inevitable visual drift down to the caption. Curiosity got the better of me very quickly, I'm afraid.

[If the caffeine question was directed at me, no I don't drink coffee after about 4pm.   smile  ]


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#144 2004-09-21 06:36:24

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Ios]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000427.html]Ios]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000427.html]Ios]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000427.html]Io's South Pole:  Cliffs and Calderas

*Crazy-quilt image.  ::shakes head::  Strange little moon.  Its intense volcanic activity is estimated to completely bury its previous surface every million years. 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#145 2004-09-22 11:32:06

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … 04]Mystery at the heart of the Milky Way

*10,000 year-old supernova energy, dark matter, Sagittarius A* (our galaxy's supermassive black hole at the galactic enter) -- ?

"Something is radiating high-energy gamma rays at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, and astronomers aren't sure what it is...

'Science continues to throw out the unexpected as we push back the frontiers of knowledge.' Halliday added,  'The centre of our Galaxy is a mysterious place, home to exotic phenomena such as a black hole and dark matter. Finding out which of these sources produced the gamma-rays will tell us a lot about the processes taking place in the very heart of the Milky Way.'"

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#146 2004-09-23 13:30:03

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Its]http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/not_comet_pulsar.html?2392004]It's -not- a comet; it's a pulsar

*The Mouse.  smile  X-ray image from Chandra.  Estimated to be zipping along at 1.3 million mph!  Discovered in '87 by radio astronomers at the VLA here in New Mexico.  :up:

"Pulsars are known to be rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron stars -- objects so dense that a mass equal to that of the Sun is packed into a diameter of about 12 miles. Their formation is associated with a Type II supernova, the collapse and subsequent explosion of a massive star...The rapid rotation and strong magnetic field of a pulsar can generate a wind of high-energy matter and antimatter particles that rush out at near the speed of light. These pulsar winds create large, magnetized bubbles of high-energy particles called pulsar wind nebulae."

*The glowing cloud/"bright column of high-energy particles" is about 4 light years in length, but all in all The Mouse extends aprox 55 l/y.  smile

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#147 2004-09-24 07:42:04

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … dc]Monster collision of galaxies

"...turmoil in the constellation Hydra, where astronomers have spotted two monster galactic clusters slamming together in one of the biggest collisions ever recorded...At 800 million light-years' distance, the crash site is considered relatively close by cosmic standards. The crash itself extends about 3 million light-years across...The larger of the two galactic clusters probably contains 1,000 galaxies, while the smaller one has 300 or so..."

*Good news, folks.  Our own Milky Way Galaxy (on the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster) is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#148 2004-09-29 12:01:18

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950715.html]Callisto Crater Chain

*Very interesting explanation.   :up:   

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#149 2004-09-30 06:54:39

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040929.html]Dawn of the Galaxies

*Thanks Hubble!  "Faint red smudges..." 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#150 2004-10-04 12:04:50

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

*Io's been on my mind quite a bit recently...not sure why (maybe the association with a volcano here on Earth currently in the US headlines...).  Anyway:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030120.html]Io at sunset  Grayscale image used to check out height of Io's mountains via viewing at sunset.  "The above image highlights Mongibello Mons on the far left, a sharp ridge rising so high it would rank among the highest mountains on Earth." 

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021218.html]Culann Patera  Red- and black-colored lava flows, yellow, green white...crazy.  :laugh:  But looks like art, too.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0206 … Prometheus Plume  Poor ravaged little moon...but that's what makes it so unique, right?.  "Named for the Greek god who gave mortals fire, the Prometheus plume is visible in every image ever made of the region dating back to the Voyager flybys of 1979 - presenting the possibility that this plume has been continuously active for at least 18 years."  Actually 2 plumes are visible in the pic.

-*-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991220.html]Lava Fountain  "The lava plume was so bright it saturated Galileo's camera, and so has been digitally reconstructed in false color."  Shooting over a kilometer high.

--Cindy

P.S.:  The 3rd post from the top of this page contains a spectacular article about "Io Dust" and its interaction with Jupiter.

::EDIT::  Want to add two more:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970623.html]Eruption on Io  Rock and gas "catapulted hundreds of kilometers into space...Io's thin atmosphere and low gravity allow volcanic plumes to rise higher than they would on Earth."  It'd be so cool to be able to watch all this in real-time.  Having time-lapse video would be beyond terrific (yeah, I can dream on...I know).

Ios]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970428.html]Io's sodium cloud  :up:  A definite can't-pass-up pic.


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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