When I was young, very few actual pictures of our solar system were available and none of the pictures were taken from anywhere but Earth. What images were available were often blurry. Many images were drawn by artists.
I have selected just a few of the many, many images made available by NASA just to highlight some of the extraordinary work going on in our lifetimes. All are photographs in the sense that they depict the exact scale and proportion as you would see if you were taking the picture yourself. The pictures of Mercury (black & white) and Saturn (color) are pretty much normal photographs. The picture of the sun is what you would see if your eyes could see ultraviolet.
All photographs were taken from somewhere other than the surface of the Earth.
Scroll down to see the pictures.
Unfurling
The STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed this visually stunning prominence eruption on Sept. 29, 2008, in the 304 angstrom wavelength of extreme UV light. Prominences are relatively cool clouds of gas suspended above the sun and controlled by magnetic forces.
The prominence rose and cascaded to the right over several hours, appearing something like a flag unfurling, as it broke apart and headed into space. The prominence is composed of ionized Helium that is about 60,000 degrees Kelvin.
Image Credit: NASA Back to top
Cratered Mercury
About 58 minutes before MESSENGER's closest approach to Mercury on Oct. 6, 2008, its Narrow Angle Camera captured this close-up image.
The features in the foreground, near the right side of the image, are close to the terminator, the line between the sunlit day side and dark night side of the planet, making the shadows long and prominent. Two very long scarps, or cliffs, are visible in this region, and the scarps appear to crosscut each other. The easternmost scarp also cuts through a crater, showing that it formed after the impact that created the crater.
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Back to top
New View [of Mercury]
Named by the Romans after the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, the planet Mercury is closest to the sun. Seen here by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft on Jan. 14, 2008, this observation was the first of its kind since the planet was glimpsed by Mariner 10 more than three decades ago.
Messenger captured this view of the planet's rugged, cratered landscape illuminated obliquely by the sun. This image was taken from a distance of approximately 11,000 miles, about 56 minutes before the spacecraft's closest encounter with Mercury. It shows a region 300 miles across including craters less than a mile wide.
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington Back to top
On Mercury
Why are many large craters on Mercury relatively smooth inside? Images from the MESSENGER spacecraft that flew by Mercury in October 2008 show previously uncharted regions of the planet that have large craters with an internal smoothness similar to Earth's own moon, and are thought to have been flooded by lava floes that are old but not as old as the surrounding more highly cratered surface.
MESSENGER will buzz past Mercury late in 2009 before entering orbit in 2011.
Image Credit: NASA, JHU APL, CIW Back to top
The View From Iapetus
While on final approach for its September 2007 close encounter with Saturn's moon Iapetus, Cassini spun around to take in a sweeping view of the Saturn System.
Iapetus (1,468 kilometers, or 912 miles across) is the only major moon of Saturn with a significant inclination to its orbit. From the other major satellites, the rings would appear nearly edge-on, but from Iapetus, the rings usually appear at a tilt, as seen here.
In the high resolution image, the following moons are visible: Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across) at center left, Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) near the left side ansa (or ring edge), Mimas (397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) a speck against the ring shadows on Saturn's western limb, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) against the bluish backdrop of the northern hemisphere, Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) near the right ansa, and Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) near lower right.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Back to top
Sarychev Volcano
A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev volcano (Russia’s Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain and is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island.
Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption had occurred in 1989 with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954 and 1946 also producing lava flows. Commercial airline flights were diverted from the region to minimize the danger of engine failures from ash intake. This detailed photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption.
The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island (48.1 degrees north latitude and 153.2 degrees east longitude) on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance; the surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption. The smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column, and is probably a transient feature (the eruption plume is starting to punch through). The structure also indicates that little to no shearing winds were present at the time to disrupt the plume. By contrast, a cloud of denser, gray ash -- most probably a pyroclastic flow -- appears to be hugging the ground, descending from the volcano summit. The rising eruption plume casts a shadow to the northwest of the island (bottom center). Brown ash at a lower altitude of the atmosphere spreads out above the ground at upper right. Low-level stratus clouds approach Matua Island from the east, wrapping around the lower slopes of the volcano. Only about 1.5 kilometers of the coastline of Matua Island (upper center) can be seen beneath the clouds and ash.
Image Credit: NASA Back to top
Jack Hills, Australia
The oldest material on Earth which has yet been dated by man is a zircon mineral that is 4.4 billion years old and comes from a sedimentary gneiss in the Jack Hills of Australia's Narre Gneiss Terrane. It is the most ancient fragment of the earth’s crust so far identified, formed approximately 150 million years after the planet itself. In August 2007, scientists reported finding the world’s oldest diamond crystals, encased inside the zircon crystals.
The image was acquired by ASTER on Oct. 12, 2004. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region and its high spatial resolution of about 50 to 300 feet, ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet and is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched Dec. 18, 1999, on NASA's Terra satellite.
The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team Back to top
Anatomy of a Busted Comet
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this image of comet Holmes in March 2008, five months after the comet suddenly erupted and brightened a million fold overnight.
Every six years, comet 17P/Holmes speeds away from Jupiter and heads inward toward the sun, traveling the same route typically without incident. However, twice in the last 116 years, in November 1892 and October 2007, comet Holmes mysteriously exploded as it approached the asteroid belt.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Back to top
Europa
Jupiter's moon Europa has a crust made up of blocks, which are thought to have broken apart and 'rafted' into new positions, as shown in the image on the left. These features are the best geologic evidence to date that Europa may have had a subsurface ocean at some time in its past.
Combined with the geologic data, the presence of a magnetic field leads scientists to believe an ocean is most likely present at Europa today. In this false color image, reddish-brown areas represent non-ice material resulting from geologic activity. White areas are rays of material ejected during the formation of the Pwyll impact crater. Icy plains are shown in blue tones to distinguish possibly coarse-grained ice (dark blue) from fine-grained ice (light blue). Long, dark lines are ridges and fractures in the crust, some of which are more than 1,850 miles long. These images were obtained by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during Sept. 7, 1996, Dec. 1996 and Feb. 1997 at a distance of 417,489 miles.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Back to top
Cape Verde, Mars
A promontory nicknamed Cape Verde can be seen jutting out from the walls of Victoria Crater in this false-color image taken by the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The rover took this picture on Martian day, or sol, 1329 (Oct. 20, 2007), more than a month after it began descending down the crater walls -- and just 9 sols shy of its second Martian birthday on sol 1338 (Oct. 29, 2007). Opportunity landed on the Red Planet on Jan. 25, 2004. That's nearly four years ago on Earth, but only two on Mars because Mars takes longer to travel around the sun than Earth. One Martian year equals 687 Earth days.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Back to top
A Classic Beauty
M51, whose name comes from being the 51st entry in Charles Messier's catalog, is considered to be a classic example of a spiral galaxy. At a distance of about 30 million light years from Earth, it is also one of the brightest spirals in the night sky. A composite image of M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy, shows the majesty of its structure in a dramatic new way through several of NASA's orbiting observatories. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals point-like sources (purple) that are black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems. Chandra also detects a diffuse glow of hot gas that permeates the space between the stars. Optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (green) and infrared emission from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red) both highlight long lanes in the spiral arms that consist of stars and gas laced with dust. A view of M51 with the GALEX telescope shows hot, young stars that produce lots of ultraviolet energy (blue).
The textbook spiral structure is thought be the result of an interaction M51 is experiencing with its close galactic neighbor, NGC 5195, which is seen just above (in the full size image).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R. Kilgard; UV: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith & The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Az/R. Kennicutt Back to top
True Colors
As seen from the side not illuminated by the sun, Saturn's thinner rings are highlighted in shades of brown and gold, contrasting with the more neutral appearance of the icy moon Tethys. The A ring and Cassini Division are separated by the optically thick B ring, which does not permit sunlight to penetrate and appears as the broad, dark lane between them in this view.
Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The view was acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 29, 2007, at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Tethys and at a Sun-Tethys-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 21 degrees. Image scale is 12 kilometers (8 miles) per pixel.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Back to top
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