Neptuneblueeee - Neptune Blue

everyone shut the fuck up and look at this snake named barcode

I hate these fucking cannibals so fucking much

Me trying to socialize

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Hubble captures rare triple moon transit of Jupiter

These new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images capture a rare occurrence as three of Jupiter’s largest moons parade across the giant gas planet’s banded face. Hubble took a string of images of the event which show the three satellites — Europa, Callisto and Io — in action. There are four Galilean satellites — named after the 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei who discovered them. They complete orbits around Jupiter ranging from two to seventeen days in duration. The moons can commonly be seen transiting the face of Jupiter and casting shadows onto its layers of cloud. However, seeing three of them transiting the face of Jupiter at the same time is rare, occurring only once or twice a decade. The image on the left shows the Hubble observation at the beginning of the event. On the left is the moon Callisto and on the right, Io. The shadows from Callisto, Io and Europa are strung out from left to right. Europa itself cannot be seen in the image. The image on the right shows the end of the event, just over 40 minutes later. Europa has entered the frame at lower left with slower-moving Callisto above and to the right of it. Meanwhile Io — which orbits significantly closer to Jupiter and so moves much more quickly — is approaching the eastern limb of the planet. Whilst Callisto’s shadow seems hardly to have moved, Io’s has set over the planet’s eastern edge and Europa’s has risen further in the west. The event is also shown from start to finish in a video. Missing from this sequence is the Galilean moon Ganymede which was outside Hubble’s field of view. The moons of Jupiter have very distinctive colours. The smooth icy surface of Europa is yellow-white, the volcanic sulphur surface of Io is orange and the surface of Callisto, which is one of the oldest and most cratered surfaces known in the Solar System, is a brownish colour.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team

The world is oftentimes such an ugly place, but sometimes it can be so beautiful.

Like, when two choirs, one from Croatia and the other from Zimbabwe, met on the opposite sides of a Lisbon subway station and both sang to each other.

I unfortunately do not know what the Zimbabwe children choir sang to them (although it was so beautiful), but the Croatian klapa Kastav sang 'Kuća puna naroda' (a house full of people).

And let my reward be a house full of people, my life, give me a voice, so I can embrace you with songs.

Video source: Irena Grdinić

Send Your Name to Jupiter

You’re invited to sign your name to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. The poem connects two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored.

The poem will be engraved on Europa Clipper, along with participants' names that will be physically etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system.

Signing up is easy! Just go to this site to sign your name to the poem and get on board. We also have a Spanish-language site where you can send your name en español: Envía tu nombre aquí.

The Europa Clipper launch window opens in October 2024, but don’t wait – everyone’s names need to be received by December 31 this year so they can be loaded onto the spacecraft in time. We hope you’ll be riding along with us! Follow the mission at europa.nasa.gov.

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Mottled sea stars (Evasterias troscheli) and flat bottom sea stars (Asterias amurensis) clinging to the ferry pier pilings in Homer, Alaska.