Picture Of The Day - December 7, 2018

Pictures of the day - December 5, 2018

I apologize for my lack pictures yesterday.

Insight B System - Fourth Planet - Insight B-V

The fifth planet orbiting Insight B is a terrestrial-like planet roughly one quarter the mass of earth (0.27 Earth Masses) and 80% of Earth’s radius (5,093.84 km). It is predominately rocky world with a significant water content in its mantle, surrounded by a thin Carbon Dioxide atmosphere.

The surface is cold with an average temperature of -159 F, and an atmospheric pressure of 0.11 atmospheres. A single small spherical satellite orbits the planet. One day lasts approximately 23 hours 38 mins. Insight B-V orbits its sun at an average distance of 0.97 AU, completing an orbit once every 1.163 Earth Years. The planet is notable for having a retrograde rotation, orbiting almost on its side with an axial tilt of 104°. Considering the planet orbits between two gas giants, the extreme tilt is to be expected.

High Resolution Pictures

Insight B-V

Small Moon

Closeup

Day-time sky

Sunset

Enceladus

Enceladus is one of the major inner moons of Saturn along with Dione, Tethys, and Mimas. It orbits Saturn at a distance of 148,000 miles (238,000 km), falling between the orbits of Mimas and Tethys. It is tidally locked with Saturn, keeping the same face toward the planet. It completes one orbit every 32.9 hours within the densest part of Saturn’s E Ring, the outermost of its major rings, and is its main source.

Enceladus is, like many moons in the extensive systems of the giant planets, trapped in an orbital resonance. Its resonance with Dione excites its orbital eccentricity, which is damped by tidal forces, tidally heating its interior, and possibly driving the geological activity.

Enceladus is Saturn’s sixth largest moon, only 157 miles (252 km) in mean radius, but it’s one of the most scientifically compelling bodies in our solar system. Hydrothermal vents spew water vapor and ice particles from an underground ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus. This plume of material includes organic compounds, volatile gases, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, salts and silica.

With its global ocean, unique chemistry and internal heat, Enceladus has become a promising lead in our search for worlds where life could exist.

In 2005, Cassini’s multiple instruments discovered that this icy outpost is gushing water vapor geysers out to a distance of three times the radius of Enceladus. The icy water particles are roughly one ten-thousandth of an inch, or about the width of a human hair. The particles and gas escape the surface at jet speed at approximately 800 miles per hour (400 meters per second). The eruptions appear to be continuous, refreshing the surface and generating an enormous halo of fine ice dust around Enceladus, which supplies material to one of Saturn’s rings, the E-ring.

Several gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, perhaps a little ammonia and either carbon monoxide or nitrogen gas make up the gaseous envelope of the plume.

Read more at: solarsystem.nasa.gov

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cassini & Kevin Gill

Busy & Hazy Sky

Picture of the Day 2 - October 23, 2018

Another beautiful aurora shot, looking towards a gas giant under a hazy atmosphere. The Andromeda galaxy is visible to the right of the picture as a hazy bright spot just below the aurora.

The Andromeda Galaxy will be the next galaxy I will be exploring in space engine beginning next month.

Rains on Different Worlds

Ultracool Dwarf and the Seven Planets

Pictures of the day - December 20, 2018

Insight A - Fifth Planet (Insight A-V)

Insight A-V is a hot earth-like planet with oceans. The planet does support marine life, but the surface is far too inhospitable for anything other than Extremophiles. The planet is much smaller and less massive than Earth at 0.14 Earth masses and a diameter roughly half that of Earth. The surface is very active with a hot atmosphere. The surface averages 161 F, with an atmosphere only 54% as thick of Earth’s that is dominated by carbon dioxide. The surface is so hot that there are no ice caps or even snow on mountain-tops.

The planet rotates backwards with an axial tilt of 148 degrees and a rotational rate of 24 hours and 21 minutes. No moons orbit the planet.

High Resolution Pictures

Insight A-V

Earth-Like World

Cyclone

The Surface

Polar orbit

Picture of the day 2 - November 17, 2018

Setting sun on an arid Mars-Like planet.

Sagittarius Triplet

Stylised map of all known nearby exoplanets

via reddit

Moon Halo

Credit: Mikhail Reva