Lightbulbs by BetaMonkeys
launched eighteen years ago, the cassini orbiter is set to crash in to saturn next september, ending its mission to collect data, including these true colour images, on saturn and it’s moons and rings. saturn’s main rings, composed mostly of ice, are thought to have formed only a few hundred million years ago, long after the planet, and the solar system itself, were birthed some four and half billion years ago.
though a hundred and seventy million miles in diameter, the main rings are only half a mile thick, with the brighter bands showing areas of greater density, and the darker, less dense areas swept relatively clear by the gravity of saturns’ moons - clear enough, anyways, for the cassini orbiter to pass through one of the gaps basically unscathed.
there is no consensus on how the rings were created, but a medium sized moon, either shattered by a meteor or pulled apart by the planet’s gravity, would account for the entire mass of the rings. there is, however, more of a consensus that in about fifty million years, saturn’s gravity will have pulled in the rings and swallowed them up. (but at least mars should have a ring by then.)
saturn has over forty moons, including one found within a ring gap. these photos show the distant rhea and titan - the latter of which is larger than mercury and has its own atmosphere and hydrocarbon lake - and the inner most mimas and enceladus - the latter being notable for its encompassing liquid ocean of water and geothermal activity.
Nebulae in Aurigae : Rich in star clusters and nebulae, the ancient constellation of the Charioteer is significantly more distant, some 12,000 light-years away. The star forming region is famous for its embedded young star cluster, NGC 1893, and tadpole-shaped clouds of dust and gas. IC 417 and NGC 1931 at the lower right, the Spider and the Fly, are also young star clusters embedded in natal clouds that lie far beyond IC 405. Star cluster NGC 1907 is near the bottom edge of the frame, just right of center. The crowded field of view looks along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, near the direction of the galactic anticenter. via NASA
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From water on Mars to Pluto’s heart, 2015 was a huge year of discovery for NASA. These don’t even mention, the “close encounters” we had with celestial objects this year.
2015 WAS AMAZING!
Art prints by KOMBOH. Collect them all!
Sorta’ want to print some of these off for my office.
I kinda wish I was a teacher and had a classroom to put these up in
