Category Archives: Pictures

Space pictures

Pictures

Tripod on the moon

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Apollo 17 mission's calibration equipment on the moon
Apollo 17 mission’s calibration equipment on the moon

This tripod like piece of equipment is actually the gnomon, one of the Apollo lunar geology hand tools, and photometric chart assembly used as a photographic reference to establish local vertical Sun angle, scale and lunar color. This picture is from the area at Station 4 (Shorty Crater) where the now famous orange soil was found by Apollo 17 crewmen Moon. This was during the second Apollo 17 extravehicular activity (EVA-2) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. What look like astronaut footsteps are visible in the lower left portion of this picture from the moon.

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Pictures

Craters on Mercury

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NASA
Messenger photographs craters on planet Mercury

NASA’s MESSENGER mission to Mercury continues its exploration of the planet by photographing its surface, including this picture taken close to the Rustaveli crater area. The largest crater here is about 1.5 miles across while the smaller ones range down to 20 or 30 meters. The white streak in the largest crater, visible against the darkenss of the crater’s abyss, is a cosmic ray hitting the Narrow Angle Camera’s CCD sensor.

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Pictures

Galaxy M82 in x-ray and visible light

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Galaxy M82 captured by Chandra X-ray Observatory
Galaxy M82 captured by Chandra X-ray Observatory

The Messier 82 (M82, NGC 3034) is a star-burst galaxy located about 12 million light-years away from Earth, in the Ursa Major constellation. The above image was captured using the x-ray spectrum by Chandra Observatory. The image below is of the same galaxy but this time it is a composite visible light image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

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Pictures

Wdowiak Ridge on Mars

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Rocky landscape of the Wdowiak Ridge photographed by the Opportunity rover
Rocky landscape of the Wdowiak Ridge photographed by the Opportunity rover

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took this picture on its 3,786th Martian day on the planet. Taken with its panoramic camera, this approximate true color image shows the rocky terrain of the Wdowiak Ridge and the rover’s previous tracks on the right. This ridge is named after Opportunity science team member Thomas J. Wdowiak  who passed away in 2013. It stands on the western rim of Endeavour crater just west of the rim’s main crest line.

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Tethys hanging from Saturn’s ring

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Saturn's moon Tethys, hanging from on its rings
Saturn’s moon Tethys, appears to be hanging from the planet’s rings

The Cassini orbiter used its narrow angle camera to photograph Saturn’s moon Tethys from this interesting angle, at a distance of 1.8 million kilometers. In this picture the 1,062 kilometer wide icy moon appears to be hanging off of Saturn’s A and F rings. Along with the bright white Saturn-facing hemisphere of Tethys, we also get to see how flat Saturn’s rings really are – supposedly only approximately 10 meters high/thick while being 300,000 kilometers across.

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