Category: Solar System

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Solar System Astronomy Space Exploration

Solar System through the eyes of Hubble Space Telescope

Saturn photo by Hubble Space Telescope (March 22, 2004)
As NASA's Cassini spacecraft was hurtling toward a July 1, 2004 rendezvous with Saturn, the Hubble Space Telescope continued snapping breathtaking pictures of the solar system's most photogenic planet. This view, taken on March 22, 2004, is so sharp that many individual ringlets can be seen in Saturn's ring plane. Though Hubble was nearly a billion miles (1.6 billion km) farther from Saturn than the Cassini probe when this photo was taken, Hubble's exquisite optics, coupled with the high resolution of its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), allowed the space telescope to take pictures of Saturn which are nearly as sharp as Cassini's wide-angle views of the full planet as it began its approach. Of course, Cassini would ultimately far exceed the resolution of Hubble during its close encounter with Saturn; indeed, Cassini's sharpness began to surpass Hubble's when it approached within 14 million miles (23 million km) of Saturn. Image source: "Cassini's Arrival" on the Hubble Space Telescope website. Image credit: NASA, ESA and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)

Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, and entered service on May 20, 1990. Since then, it has observed all the planets in our Solar System, apart from Earth and Mercury. Earth is far better studied by geologists on the ground and specialized probes in orbit. Hubble can’t observe Mercury as it is too close to the Sun, whose brightness would damage the telescope’s sensitive instruments.

Here are the best images of the planets (except Earth and Mercury) and some non-planets of our Solar System through the eye of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Solar System Astronomy

What if Ganymede was the Earth’s second moon?

Moon and Ganymede in the Earth's sky
The largest moon and also the largest non-planet in the Solar System, Ganymede has a mean radius of 2634.1±0.3 km (about 1636 miles, 0.413 Earths). For comparison, our Moon's radius is 1,737.1 km (1079 mi). What if Ganymede was the Earth's second moon? That's how it would look in the sky if it was at the same distance as the Moon.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest and most massive of the Solar System’s moons. It has a mean radius of 2634.1±0.3 km (about 1636 miles, 0.413 Earths). For comparison, our Moon’s radius is 1,737.1 km (1079 mi). What if Ganymede was the Earth’s second moon? How would it look in the sky, if it was at the same distance as the Moon?

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Astronomy Solar System

How far are the nearest stars? [a 200 billionth scale model to demonstrate]

Milky Way
Milky Way is our home galaxy in the universe. It is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter between 150,000 and 200,000 light-years (ly). It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars. Earth is a part of the Milky Way Galaxy which, in turn, is a part of a cluster of galaxies known as the Local Group. Further, the Local Group is a small part of the Virgo Supercluster which is a cluster of cluster of galaxies, comprising of thousands of other galaxies. Like the Virgo Supercluster, there are countless other superclusters as well. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Then, observations by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble (November 20, 1889 - September 28, 1953) showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.

Another “putting things into perspective” video which I liked, shows how big space is, and actually how far the nearest stars are from us.

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Astronomy Evolution Life on Earth Planet Earth Solar System

Two neutron stars collided near the solar system 4.6 billion years ago

Two Neutron Stars Collide - explosion
The merger of two neutron stars is an extremely powerful event. Gravitational waves (pale arcs) bleed away orbital energy, causing the stars to move closer together and merge. As the stars collide, some of the debris blasts away in particle jets moving at nearly the speed of light, producing a brief burst of gamma rays (magenta). In addition to the ultra-fast jets powering the gamma-rays, the merger also generates slower moving debris. An outflow driven by accretion onto the merger remnant emits rapidly fading ultraviolet light (violet). A dense cloud of hot debris stripped from the neutron stars just before the collision produces visible and infrared light (blue-white through red). The UV, optical and near-infrared glow is collectively referred to as a kilonova. Later, once the remnants of the jet directed toward us had expanded into our line of sight, X-rays (blue) were detected.

According to a new study published in the May 2, 2019 issue of Nature, 4.6 billion years ago, two neutron stars collided near the early Solar System (actually about 1000 light-years from the gas cloud that eventually formed the Solar System). This violent collision has created heavy elements like silver, gold, platinum, cesium, and uranium. The study says 0.3% of the Earth’s heaviest elements have been created by this event.

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Astronomy Moon Landing Physics Planet Earth Solar System Space Exploration

Timelapse of the future [an amazing video!]

A star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud
A star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A star is type of astronomical object consisting of a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of about 50 kiloparsecs (~163,000 light-years), the LMC is the second or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (~16 kpc) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy known as the Canis Major Overdensity. Image: Wikipedia. The image is from the European Space Agency. It is listed as the LH 95 star forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The image was taken using the Hubble Space Telescope (ESA/Hubble).

Melodysheep published an amazing video titled “Timelapse of the future: a journey to the end of time”. This experience takes us on a journey to the end of time, trillions of trillions of years into the future, to discover what the fate of our planet, our sun, and our universe may ultimately be.

If this video won’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will.

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Solar System Astronomy Earth from Space Planet Earth Space Exploration

Meteor which blasted over the Bering Sea was recorded by a satellite

Meteor that blasted over the Bering Sea
A color view of the meteor that flew over the North Pacific and exploded over the Bering Sea in December 2018, taken by Japan's Himawari weather satellite. Scientists long knew that meteoroids often blew up before they reach the Earth’s surface, but they didn’t know why. According to a study, as a meteoroid hurtles through Earth’s atmosphere, the high-pressure air in front of it seeps into its pores and cracks. This process creates a great amount of internal pressure too, which pushing the body of the meteor apart and causing it to explode.

On December 18, 2018, at around noon local time, a meteor about 10 meters (30 feet) long and weighing more than 1,500 tons, plunged into Earth’s atmosphere. It exploded over the Bering Sea and released energy equivalent to 173 kilotons of TNT – at least ten times more powerful than “Little Boy”, the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Japanese weather satellite Himawari 8 has recorded the fireball of the meteor before it exploded.

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Solar System Astronomy Space Exploration

Top 10 Largest Non-Planets in the Solar System

The moons of the Solar System
The moons of the Solar System. If some of these moons were situated in different locations (orbiting the Sun instead of another planet), astronomers would define them as planets. Seven of the top ten largest non-planets in the Solar System are all moons.

The Solar System is a vast and fascinating place that is home to a diverse range of celestial bodies, ranging from small asteroids to giant planets. However, there are also a number of objects that fall somewhere in between – they are not planets, but they are also not small enough to be considered asteroids or comets.

In this article, we will explore the top 10 largest non-planets in the Solar System. From massive moons to dwarf planets, these objects are fascinating in their own right and play an important role in our understanding of the cosmos. Let’s take a closer look at these intriguing objects and learn more about what makes them so unique.

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Solar System Astronomy

How large the Sun looks from other planets [Apparent Size of the Sun]

Apparent size of the sun from the planets of the Solar System
Apparent size of the sun from the planets of the Solar System.

Have you ever wondered what the Sun would look like from the other planets in our solar system? Here is a visual showing the apparent size of the Sun from the planets of the solar system, including Earth.

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Solar System Astronomy

FarFarOut: the new farthest object in our solar system

Farfarout distance from the Sun
While searching for the hypothetical Planet X, Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. has found what might be the most distant object ever identified in the Solar System. It orbits the Sun at a massive distance of 140 Astronomical Units (AU), and for now, the astronomers are jokingly calling the new object “FarFarOut". It is further away from the previous record holder, the "Farout" (far-out-there). (Scott Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science)

Meet Farfarout: in December 2018, astronomers discovered the farthest known object in our solar system, which is about 120 times farther than Earth is from the Sun (120 Astronomical Units -AU) and named it “Farout” (far-out-there). But its record didn’t last long. Now, while searching for the hypothetical Planet X, Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. has found what might be the most distant object ever identified in the Solar System. It orbits the Sun at a massive distance of 140 ~132 (see the update below) Astronomical Units (AU), and for now, the astronomers are jokingly calling the new object “FarFarOut”.

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Solar System Astronomy

Moon Drawings of Galileo Galilei (1609)

Galileo Galilei's Moon Drawings (cropped)
Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer Galileo Galilei's (1564-1642) moon drawings. These were the first realistic images of the Moon, due to Galileo's training in art and an understanding of chiaroscuro (a technique for shading light and dark) he understood that the shadows he was seeing were actually mountains and craters.

Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, and polymath Galileo Galilei’s (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) moon drawings. These were the first realistic images of the Moon, due to Galileo’s training in art and an understanding of chiaroscuro (a technique for shading light and dark) he understood that the shadows he was seeing were actually mountains and craters.

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