Pictures Of The Day - February 9, 2019

Ten interesting facts about Saturn

Saturn is sometimes called “The Jewel of the Solar System.” It is a planet that is nothing like our own. Humans have been gazing up at Saturn for a long time. They have been wondering about it for thousands of years.

Here are some fun facts about the Ringed Planet.

Saturn is huge. It is the second largest planet in our Solar System. Jupiter is the only planet that is bigger.

The rings are huge but thin. The main rings could almost go from Earth to the moon. Yet, they are less than a kilometer thick.

Four spacecraft have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and the Cassini-Huygens mission have all studied the planet. 

Saturn has oval-shaped storms similar to Jupiter’s: The region around its north pole has a hexagonal-shaped pattern of clouds. Scientists think this may be a wave pattern in the upper clouds. The planet also has a vortex over its south pole that resembles a hurricane-like storm.

Saturn is made mostly of hydrogen and helium: It exists in layers that get denser farther into the planet. Eventually, deep inside, the hydrogen becomes metallic. At the core lies a hot interior. (click the image for a better resolution).

Saturn has 62 moons: Some of these are large, like Titan, the second largest moon in the Solar System. But most are tiny – just a few km across, and they have no official names. In fact, the last few were discovered by NASA’s Cassini orbiter just a few years ago. More will probably be discovered in the coming years.

Saturn orbits the Sun once every 29.4 Earth years: Its slow movement against the backdrop of stars earned it the nickname of “Lubadsagush” from the ancient Assyrians. The name means “oldest of the old”.

In Saturn there is aurora: Photographic composition made by the Hubble Space Telescope showing the occurrence of aurora in the southern hemisphere of Saturn at intervals of two days.The aurora is visible only in the ultraviolet.

Saturn spins on its axis very fast. A day on Saturn is 10 hours and 14 minutes.

You can see Saturn with your own eyes: Saturn appears as one of the 5 planets visible with the unaided eye. If Saturn is in the sky at night, you can head outside and see it. To see the rings and the ball of the planet itself, you’ll want to peer through a telescope. But you can amaze your friends and family by pointing out that bright star in the sky, and let them know they’re looking at Saturn.

sources: nasa.gov, universetoday.com and solarsystem.nasa.gov

Triangulum Log - Post 4 - Vista System (Planet 2)

Here we come across the system’s second planet, a warm desert world. This rocky world orbits 0.41 AU from the sun and has a mass roughly one fifth that of Earth. It is a hot world covered in a thin Carbon Dioxide/ Sulfur Dioxide atmosphere with one tenth the atmospheric pressure of Earth. The planet is tidally locked to the sun and has an average surface temperature of 231° F on the day-side.

High Resolution Pics

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Picture of the day - December 9, 2018

One of Insight B-VI’s smaller outer moons crossing the face of a large cyclone.

Picture of the Day - November 9, 2018

Crescent gas giant over an asteroid moon.

First pictures from the M59 galaxy. Here I come across a 7 planet system orbiting an orange giant. All the planets in this system are experiencing the effects of the expanding sun, and orbit relatively close to the sun. The outer-most ice giant orbits just 3.62 AU from the sun.

Space Engine System ID: RS-5581-21-3-270-585

I just unfortunately found out that Tumblr does not allow posts with links in them to show up on searches. This is very problematic for me since I like posting 4K resolution pics on here. Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep Tumblr from reducing image sizes so I do not have to add links to my posts?

High Resolution Pics

Partially molten moon

Galaxy NGC 4429 photo bombs this moon shot.

Molten world

Rising giant

Burnt desert

Solar Atmosphere

Pictures of the day - December 28, 2018

From this point forward, all Space Engine posts on my pillowfort and my Tumblr page will be the same.

Here we come across a small green-colored ice giant with an active atmosphere. This planet orbits a binary pair of red dwarfs and has a small yet well structured ring system. Additionally, a system of 13 natural satellites orbit the planet, including two of which that are large enough to be rounded by their own gravity. Like Uranus, this planet also orbits on it's side.

Space Engine System ID: RS 5581-42-8-5915539-1541 2 if anyone wants to visit the planet.

Planet Stats Below:

Radius: 17,474.59 km (2.74 x Earth) Mass: 9.59 Earth Masses Orbital Distance: 0.57 AU Length of Year: 294.35 days Length of Day: 11 hours 47 minutes Gravity: 1.28 g Temperature: 85 K (-307 F) Atmosphere: 92.9% Hydrogen, 6.96% Helium, 0.14% Methane

High Resolution Pictures

Small green ice giant

Binary red suns

Through the rings

Small moon

For scientists watching the Red Planet from our orbiters, the past month has been a windfall. “Global” dust storms, where a runaway series of storms create a dust cloud so large they envelop the planet, only appear every six to eight years (that’s 3-4 Mars years). Scientists still don’t understand why or how exactly these storms form and evolve.

Read the full story HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

Pictures of the Day - December 25, 2018 (Merry Christmas)

Insight A System - Either Planet (Insight A-VIII)

Insight A-VIII is the eighth planet orbiting Insight A. It is an ice-giant with a mass 15.46 times that of Earth, and a diameter of 3.19 Earths. The planet has unusually pronounced cloud bands, and a wide-spaced ring system. It orbits it’s sun at an average distance of 4.01 AU, completing 1 orbit every 7.41 Years.

This planet has an active atmosphere with an average temperature of -213 F, and a day on the planet last 11 hours and 6 minus. 5 moons orbit the planet that are large enough to be rounded by their own gravity, including 4 larger than 2,000 kilometers across.

High Resolution Pictures

Insight A-VIII

Transiting Moon

Closeup

Asteroid Moon

View from outer-most large moon

Pictures of the Day - February 8, 2019 - (Late Post)

Weird red-tinted ice giant orbiting Bernard's Star viewed from the surface of several of it's asteroid moons.

Insight System - Post 1

First post of the Insight System.

The Insight system (named after the newest Mars lander) is a wide-spaced binary system consisting of a yellow G1V type star (Insight A) and a dimmer orange K5V type star (Insight B), that orbit each other in an elliptical orbit at an average distance of 192.3 AU. Both stars complete 1 orbit around each other every 2,432 years.

Insight A is 1.6 times brighter than our sun, and Insight B is only 1/6th the brightness of our sun.

Both stars have their own solar systems.

My first post if of the 6 planets orbiting the dimmer star Insight B.

First Planet Insight B-I (1.1 Earth masses)

Second Planet Insight B-II (5.3 Earth Masses)

Third Planet Insight B-III (11.7 Jupiter Masses)

Fourth Planet Insight B-IV (0.20 Jupiter Masses)

Fifth Planet Insight B-V (0.27 Earth masses)

Outer-most planet Insight B-VI (1.42 Jupiter Masses)

More pictures to come soon.