Tag Archives: Saturn

Astronomy, Solar System, Space Exploration

Solar System through the eyes of Hubble Space Telescope

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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 Hubble Space Telescope.

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Astrobiology, Astronomy, Earth Facts, Life on Earth, Solar System

8 Things that make Life on Earth Possible

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Earth, our blue planet is an oasis in the vast, cold, and dark space. It is the only planet we know of that can support life. The fossil record tells us that life on Earth has lasted at least 3.5 billion years (the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old), with the oldest physical traces of life dating back 3.7 billion years. And, if some kind of disaster doesn’t intervene, our planet should continue to host life for at least another 1.75 billion years. Here are the 8 things that make life on Earth possible.

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Astronomy, Solar System, Space Exploration, Videos

Top 10 Largest Non-Planets In Our Solar System

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There are eight planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Two of the largest moons are bigger than the smallest planet, Mercury. Here are the top 10 largest non-planets in our solar system (eight of them are moons and two of them are dwarf planets).

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Astronomy, Solar System, Videos

Watch: Yet Another Scale Model of the Solar System

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Previously I posted articles titled “If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A Tediously Accurate Map Of The Solar System” and “A Scale Model Of Solar System Drawn In The Desert And The Result Is Stunning”. Since the human brain cannot deal with the really large numbers, these articles provide amazing ways to understand how big actually our Solar System is.

Now, in his YouTube channel, The Science Asylum, physicist Nick Lucid provides yet another scale model of the solar system. A very nice video conceptualizing how mind-bogglingly big our solar system (and space) is.

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Astrobiology, Astronomy, Life on Earth, Space Exploration

To find aliens, we must think of life as we don’t know it

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From blob-like jellyfish to rock-like lichens, our planet teems with such diversity of life that it is difficult to recognise some organisms as even being alive. That complexity hints at the challenge of searching for life as we don’t know it – the alien biology that might have taken hold on other planets, where conditions could be unlike anything we’ve seen before. ‘The Universe is a really big place. Chances are, if we can imagine it, it’s probably out there on a planet somewhere,’ said Morgan Cable, an astrochemist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. ‘The question is, will we be able to find it?’

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Astronomy

Top 6 Biggest Stars in the Universe

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What is the biggest star in the Universe? In fact, it is really hard to give an exact answer to this question since the universe is big, neighboring and the other galaxies are billions of light years away from us. But, we can give it a try. Here are the top 6 biggest stars in the Universe currently known by radius.

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Astronomy, Solar System, Space Exploration, Videos

Song of Saturn and Its Moon Enceladus

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NASA has published an amazing video titled “Sounds of Saturn: Hear Radio Emissions of the Planet and Its Moon Enceladus”. The analyze of the data from the Cassini Spacecraft’s Grand Finale orbits showed a surprisingly powerful interaction of plasma waves moving from Saturn to its icy moon Enceladus. Researchers converted the recording of plasma waves into a “whooshing” audio file that we can hear, in the same way a radio translates electromagnetic waves into music.

Much like air or water, plasma (the fourth state of matter) generates waves to carry energy. The recording was captured by the Radio Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument on September 2, 2017, two weeks before Cassini was deliberately plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn.

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