News release: 2009-180 Nov. 30, 2009 Scientists Explain Puzzling Lake Asymmetry on Titan The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm'release=2009-180&cid=release_2009-180 PASADENA, Calif. -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other institutions suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's...
Last year, the Cassini spacecraft found solid (haha) evidence for the existence of lakes of liquid methane and ethane on the giant moon Titan. Of course, Titan is barely a moon at all — bigger than Mercury, it would be a planet in its own right if it weren’t orbiting Saturn. It has an atmosphere [...]
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn’s orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet’s largest moon, Titan. A paper describing the theory appears in the November 29th advance online edition of [...]
Enough politics, enough already! Here's something completely different... The "traditional" planets seen to the naked eye all have Hebrew names that date back at least 2 thousand years. Mercury: כוכב חמה [ko-chav khamah] Venus: נוגה [no-ga] Earth: כדור הארץ [kadur ha'aretz] Mars:...
al0ha writes "In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known 'northern lights' in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness high above the ringed planet. The new video reveals changes in Saturn's aurora every few minutes, in high resolution, with three dimensions. The images show a previously unseen vertical profile...
It took humans thousands of years to explore our own planet and centuries to comprehend our neighboring planets, but nowadays new worlds are being discovered every week. To date, astronomers have identified more than 370 “exoplanets,” worlds orbiting stars other than the sun. Many are so strange as to confirm the biologist J. B. S. Haldane’s famous remark that “the universe...
I personally think that the first time you see the planets through an ordinary telescope, Saturn takes the cake as the most beautiful to watch, and it can all be explained in two words: planetary rings. Imagine how beautiful and interesting the sky would look like if the Earth had its own set of rings. If you can't imagine it, here's a nice video to help you visualize it, and as if that weren't cool...
In the following video, Bill Nye demonstrates a scale model of the solar system by riding his bike across a barren plain. Richard Dawkins wrote this about our planetary system: Find a large open space, and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line, stick [...] Related posts: Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs: The Game Bill Gates Facebook Page What if Earth...
Saturn's moon Prometheus, orbiting near the streamer-channels it has created in the thin F ring, casts a shadow on the A ring in this image taken a little more than a week after the planet's August 2009 equinox. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Full image and caption The diminutive moon Prometheus whips gossamer ice particles out of Saturn's F ring in this image taken by the Cassini spacecraft...
The overall science fiction themes of Planet Comics typically followed whatever trend was the most popular at the time. Early in the series the stories were verging on the silly, reflecting the Hugo Gernsback-style of science fiction, or "Scientifiction" that was prevalent in the pulps. Space ships were simple reaction rockets that flew through the cloudy, ether-filled space between the stars...
In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known “northern lights” in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness high above the ringed planet. The new video reveals changes in Saturn’s aurora every few minutes, in high resolution, with three dimensions. The images show a [...]
IMAGE/VIDEO ADVISORY: 2009-176 November 24, 2009 Cassini Captures Ghostly Dance of Saturn's Northern Lights The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm'release=2009-176&cid=advisory_2009-176 PASADENA, Calif. – In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known "northern...
An aurora, shining high above the northern part of Saturn, moves from the night side to the day side of the planet in this movie recorded by Cassini. credit: NASA
Who discovered Saturn? Was this planet known to the ancients or is it modern science that brought it to our attention? To be honest, in the old times people were better informed on the movement of the stars than we…
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