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Minos Linea region on Europa

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Minos Linea on Jupiter’s moon Europa, is named after “Minos” in Greek mythology. Minos was a king of Crete and was the son of Europa and Zeus.

Minos Linea - NASA
Minos Linea region on Jupiter’s moon Europa

This false colour picture of Minos Linea on Europa was taken by the Galileo spacecraft on 28 June, 1996 and shows its triple bands, lineae and mottled terrains, which appear in brown and reddish tones. They appear to be red and brown due to the likely presence of contaminants in the ice. The icy plains can be seen behind them in bluish hues. This  composite image was produced using images with effective wavelengths at 989, 757, and 559 nanometers.

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Streaking comet Siding Spring

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Streaking Comet - NASA
Streaking comet Siding Spring C/2007 Q3

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) took this picture of a comet during its ongoing infrared survey of the whole sky. The Siding Spring comet, also known as C/2007 Q3 was an Aussie discovery and is comprised of a snowball-like mass of ice and dust.  It is believed that this comet spent billions of years orbiting in the very cold Oort Cloud but was then knocked out of its old orbit and moved closer to the sun. The heat then warmed the comet and lead to it shedding the ice and dust in a long tail, which trails behind it. The comet appears red because it is still more than ten times colder than the stars around it.

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Craters on the asteroid Vesta

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Vesta is one of the largest asteroids in our Solar System and has been the subject of study by JPL’s Dawn mission.

Vesta - NASA
Twin impact craters on the Vesta asteroid

The surface of Vesta is pockmarked with impact craters. The two pictured above range from about 20 kilometers and 6 kilometers in diameter and are found in Vesta’s Urbinia quadrangle. This image was taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, through the clear filter of its framing camera on December 18, 2011. Dawn was about 260 kilometers from the surface and in the low-altitude mapping orbit phase of its mission mission to study this asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.

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Galileo spacecraft deployed by STS-34

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NASA’s Galileo spacecraft was built by JPL and launched by the Atlantis space shuttle (STS-34) in October 1989 with a mission to explore Jupiter and its moons.

Galileo
Galileo in the Atlantis space shuttle bay

Here the Galileo spacecraft, mounted on the inertial upper stage (IUS) rises above the airborne support equipment (ASE) as it is brought into position by Atlantis’ Orbiter Vehicle’s payload bay.

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Stars from the Aquarius constellation

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Aquarius
Stars from the constellation of Aquarius

Skylab was Americas’s first manned space station where astronauts performed numerous experiments. As part of the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, this picture of stars from the Aquarius constellation was taken during their Zodiacal Light/Gegenschein experiments. A 35mm camera was used with a six minute exposure; pointing out into space through Skylab’s anti-solar scientific airlock, within its Orbital Workshop (OWS).

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