Some incredibly sharp images from the Juno mission of Ganymede. The first new views of this beautiful moon since Galileo. See more from kevinmgill on flickr. Also see the thread building up to these full composites in unmannedspaceflight.com.
The Green Light of Day
Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
Hope for Mars
Nothing really. Just a gorgeous image of Mars from the UAE Hope mission.
Morning and Night on Mars
Yeah. Um… Wow. Nice Job NASA. I’ll just copy/paste how The Planetary Society explained it:
“NASA's Curiosity team made this artistic interpretation of the rover's view from high up Mt. Sharp by combining pictures taken at different times of day and adding colors to bring out the contrast. The first set of images was taken at 8:30 a.m local Mars time on Nov. 16, and the second set at 4:10 p.m. The morning light is highlighted in blue, while the afternoon is orange.”
Taken on August 28, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Cassini’s Final Look at Enceladus
This is from images obtained by Cassini shortly before plunging into the Saturnian atmosphere. The images were taken over 14 hours and compiled into this animation.
Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
Kind of Cool Image of Io from Juno
The brightest spot is a radiation signature, but all the rest are thought to be active volcanos on the Io surface. The moons are not a primary target of the Juno mission, but they do occasionally take a peek to try and monitor such phenomenon at Io. Later when the mission is extended, Juno will explore the full Jupiter system with its rings and moons. Multiple rendezvous are planned for Ganymede, Europa, and Io.
Image is not visible light, but taken with an x-ray camera.
ISS Looks Like a Toy
These animated gifs of The International Space Station look just like metal toys — but they are real. Each frame is taken with ground based amateur telescopes and then pieced together with common image software like Adobe Photoshop.
It is incredible to me that there are people who spend their lives denying space flight is real when all they need to do is look through a telescope to see it with their own eyes. You can’t explain ignorance like that. ;)
See more here at spacestationguys.com.
China's Zhurong Mars Rover
How adorable is this. The Zhurong rover placed a camera on the ground, backed up and took a selfie next to the landing platform it emerged from last month.
We don’t post enough Mars Scenic Views
I mean… we don’t post enough in general.
OSIRIS-REX Leaves Bennu
The OSIRIS-REX mission in on a two year trajectory back to Earth after capturing fragments of the near Earth asteroid Bennu after successfully executing a sample touchdown last fall. [LINK]
The sampling of of the asteroid’s surface is shown above.
Phobos over mount Sharp
Taken by the Curiosity rover. This is one of Mars tiny moons as seen from the ground. Impressive as it is only 14 long and you can actually see its shape from the surface. See Phobos below for reference.
Colorized View of Perseverance Landing
An artificially colorized view of Jezero Crater, showing the bird’s eye view of Perseverance screaming towards Mars’s surface. The above image was enhanced by Kevin Gill into full color, taking images captured by Perseverance’s Lander Vision System Camera just after the heat shield was released.
The First Ever Real-Time Video from Another Planet
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why: this is the first real-time video taken from another world since 1972, and this is the first ever taken on another planet.
Most “video” you see from other planetary missions are actually animations. Multiple image frames taken over long periods of time. Then someone registers the images to one another to smooth out the motion and then you have animated photographic video. Additionally, these seconds long clips are usually of events that actually took hours or even days to play out.
That being said, seeing the Martian surface move below in real time, the parachute deploying against an alien sky, and the rover being dropped to the surface from the Sky Crane is absolutely amazing. Perhaps my favorite moment is when the Sky Crane flies off behind a cloud of dust looks just like (and actually is) an alien spacecraft visiting an alien world.
Parker Solar Probe Swings by Venus
Venus as seen by Parker Solar Probe in near-infrared light.
Read MoreMovie of Pluto Slowly Rotating
For some reason, the video scales and crops when you play here. Click to see it in Seán’s Flickr page.
According to the creator it was made from New Horizons data released in 2017. Created for The Lymann Spitzer Jr. Planetarium, a public planetarium in Vermont.
Wonderful animation of BEPi-COLUMBO passing EARTH
Incredibly Realistic Render of Venera on Venus
Anyone interested in space exploration has to see this render of Venera on the surface of Venus. Everything about it looks real. A true work of art by Mattias Malmer.
A Drop Shadow of Jovian Proportions
“Io's shadow from @NASAJuno image PJ22_26 obtained on September 12, 2019. This is an approximately true color/contrast image. Jupiter's bluish sky is faintly visible at the limb.” — Björn Jónsson (image processor). Original tweet.
There’s a Hole in Jupiter
“Since dark features on Jupiter’s atmosphere tend to run deeper than light features, the Abyss may really be the deep hole that it appears — but without more evidence that remains conjecture.” — NASA
