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Gullies at the Edge of Hale
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This image from NASA's Mars
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10/6/09
| Description |
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows gullies near the edge of Hale crater on southern Mars. Martian gullies carved into hill slopes and the walls of impact craters were discovered several years ago. On Earth, gullies usually form through the action of liquid water -- long thought to be absent on the Martian surface. Whether liquid water carves gullies under today's cold and dry conditions on Mars is a major question that planetary scientists are trying to answer. Gullies at this site are especially interesting because scientists recently discovered actively changing examples at similar locations. Images separated by several years showed changes in the appearance of some of these gullies. Today, planetary scientists are using the HiRISE camera on MRO to examine gullies such as the one in this image for change that might provide a clue about whether liquid water occurs on the surface of Mars. The view covers an area about 1 kilometer, or 0.6 mile, across and was taken on Aug. 3, 2009. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona |
| Date |
10/6/09 |
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Europa
Jupiter's moon Europa has a
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4/28/09
| Description |
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 |
| Date |
4/28/09 |
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Dunes of Mars
Dunes of sand-sized material
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01/21/10
| Description |
Dunes of sand-sized materials have been trapped on the floors of many Martian craters. This is one example, from a crater in Noachis Terra, west of the giant Hellas impact basin. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view on Dec. 28, 2009. The dunes here are linear, thought to be due to shifting wind directions. In places, each dune is remarkably similar to adjacent dunes, including a reddish (or dust colored) band on northeast-facing slopes. Large angular boulders litter the floor between dunes. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona |
| Date |
01/21/10 |
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Infrared and Radar Views of
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| Description |
This image composite contains a radar image taken during a February 2005 (T3) flyby, and overlaid are images from the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer taken on Sept. 7, 2006, (T17) and Oct. 25, 2006 (T20). |
| Full Description |
This image composite contains a radar image taken during a February 2005 (T3) flyby, and overlaid are images from the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer taken on Sept. 7, 2006, (T17) and Oct. 25, 2006 (T20). The thin strip is the infrared image taken on the inbound leg of the T20 flyby and crosses the radar image near an area with a small, crater-like feature. In the radar image a faint fan of material seems to originate at the crater, and the portion of the infrared image that crosses the faint fan shows both a large brightness contrast and very sharp boundaries. The fan-like deposit has such sharp boundaries and strong contrast with its surroundings that it supports the idea that the deposit seen in the radar images is a flow of material erupted from the small crater. This may be the strongest evidence yet of cryovolcanism on Titan. The infrared image was taken at a distance of 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) from the surface of Titan and resolves features as small as 400 meters (1,300 feet). The infrared images were taken at wavelengths of 1.3 microns shown in blue, 2 microns shown in green, and 5 microns shown in red. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona where this image was produced. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm . The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
| Date |
December 12, 2006 |
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Iapetus' Equatorial Region -
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| Description |
Iapetus' Equatorial Region -- Labeled |
| Full Description |
Cassini made a close flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007, and the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer obtained these images during that event. These two images show a higher resolution version of the equatorial region shown in Tiny Grains on Iapetus. The equatorial region includes the equatorial bulge which shows no differences in these compositions compared to surrounding regions. The color image on the right shows the results of mapping for three components of Iapetus' surface: carbon dioxide that is trapped or adsorbed in the surface (red), water in the form of ice (green), and a newly-discovered effect due to trace amount of dark particles in the ice creating what scientists call Rayleigh scattering (blue). The Rayleigh scattering effect is the main reason why the Earth's sky appears blue. There is a complex transition zone from the dark region, on the right, which is high in carbon dioxide, to the more ice-rich region on the left. Some crater floors are filled with carbon dioxide-rich dark material. As the ice becomes cleaner to the left, the small dark particles become more scattered and increase the Rayleigh scattering effect, again indicative of less than 2 percent dark sub-0.5-micron particles. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is like a digital camera, but instead of using three colors, it makes images in 352 colors, or wavelengths, from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared. The many wavelengths produce a continuous spectrum in each pixel, and these spectra measure how light is absorbed by different materials. By analyzing the absorptions expressed in each pixel, a map of the composition at each location on the moon can be constructed. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team home page is at: http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona /USGS |
| Date |
October 8, 2007 |
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| Description |
Here on the Gallery page you can find the very latest images, videos and products from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, including the spectacular launch, spacecraft assembly and the exciting trip to Saturn. |
| Full Description |
The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000. Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Both Ganymede and Titan have greater surface area than the entire Eurasian continent on our planet. Cassini was 26.5 million kilometers (16.5 million miles) from Ganymede when this image was taken. The smallest visible features are about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) across. The bright area near the south (bottom) of Ganymede is Osiris, a large, relatively new crater surrounded by bright icy material ejected by the impact which created it. Elsewhere, Ganymede displays dark terrains that NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft have shown to be old and heavily cratered. The brighter terrains are younger and laced by grooves. Various kinds of grooved terrains have been seen on many icy moons in the solar system. These are believed to be the surface expressions of warm, pristine, water-rich materials that moved to the surface and froze. Ganymede has proven to be a fascinating world, the only moon known to have a magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, produced by a convecting metal core. The interaction of Ganymede's and Jupiter's magnetospheres may produce dazzling variations in the auroral glows in Ganymede's tenuous atmosphere of oxygen. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona For higher resolution, click here. |
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Sister Moons
| Description |
Dione and Tethys |
| Full Description |
Cassini offers this lovely comparison between two of Saturn's satellites, Dione and Tethys, which are similar in size but have very different surfaces. Extensive systems of bright fractures carve the surface of Dione (1,118 kilometers, or 695 miles across). The double-pronged feature Carthage Linea points toward the crater Turnus at the nine o'clock position near the terminator, and Palatine Linea runs toward the moon's bottom limb near the five o'clock position. In contrast, the surface of Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across) appears brighter and more heavily cratered. The large crater Penelope is near the eastern limb. The huge rift zone Ithaca Chasma, which is 3 to 5 kilometers (2 to 3 miles) deep and extends for about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from north to south across Tethys, is hidden in shadow just beyond the terminator. For comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) deep, and about 450 kilometers (280 miles) long. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 7, 2005, at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (908,000 miles) from Tethys and 1.6 million kilometers (994,000 miles) from Dione. The image scale is 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Tethys, and 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Dione. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org . *Credit:* NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute |
| Date |
April 18, 2005 |
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Titan Crater in Three Views
| Description |
Titan Crater in Three Views |
| Full Description |
This three-panel image shows one of Titan's most prominent impact craters in an infrared-wavelength image (left), radar image (center) and in the false-color image (right). The Cassini radar imaged this crater during Cassini's third flyby of Titan, on Feb. 15, 2005, (see Impact Crater with Ejecta Blanket). The crater, located at 16 degrees west, 11 degrees north, is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) in diameter and is surrounded beyond that by a blanket of material thrown out of the crater during impact. In radar, brighter surfaces mean rougher terrains, or else terrains tilted toward the radar. Two Titan flybys later, on April 16, the visual infrared mapping spectrometer on Cassini obtained images of the same crater. The panel on the left is an image at the 2.0 micron wavelength, showing that the crater has a dark floor and a small bright area in the center. The crater is surrounded by bright material, which has a very faint halo slightly darker than the surrounding dark material. Compare the radar image with the visual infrared mapping spectrometer image. Both the crater and the blanket of surrounding material (called ejecta) are bright at radar wavelengths, in the infrared, the crater itself is dark and this blanket of material is quite bright. In radar, the faint halo surrounding the blanket of material is quite similar in appearance to the rest of the ejecta blanket. The right hand panel is a false-color visual infrared mapping spectrometer image of the crater at lower resolution. It shows the faint halo to be slightly bluer than surrounding material. That the material is bluer than its surroundings, while also being darker, suggests that the faint halo is somewhat different in composition. This suggests that the composition of Titan's upper crust varies with depth, and various materials were excavated when the crater was formed. The same structure appearing so different to different instruments illustrates the importance of multiple instruments studying such phenomena. The Cassini spacecraft, being the most interdisciplinary spacecraft ever flown, strongly embodies such an approach. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument team is based at JPL, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For more information about the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer visit http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu/. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
| Date |
April 27, 2005 |
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Red Spot on Titan
| Description |
Image of an unusual bright, red spot on Titan |
| Full Description |
The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument onboard Cassini has found an unusual bright, red spot on Titan. This dramatic color (but not true color) image was taken during the April 16, 2005, encounter with Titan. North is to the right. In the center it shows the dark lanes of the "H"-shaped feature (see Titan's surface revealed) discovered from Earth and first seen by Cassini last July shortly after it arrived in the Saturn system. At the southwestern edge of the "H" feature, near Titan's limb (edge), is an area roughly 500 kilometers (300 miles) across. That area is 50 percent brighter, when viewed using light with a wavelength of 5 microns, than the bright continent-sized area known as Xanadu (see Eyes on Xanadu). Xanadu extends to the northwest of the bright spot, beyond the limb (edge) of Titan in this image. Near the terminator (the line between day and night) at the bottom of this image is the 80 kilometer (50 mile) crater that has been previously seen by the Cassini radar, imaging cameras, and the visual and infrared spectrometer (see Titan Crater in Three Views). At wavelengths shorter than 5 microns, the spot is not unusually bright. The strange spectral character of this enigmatic feature has left the team with four possibilities for its source: the spot could be a surface coloration, a mountain range, a cloud, or a hot spot. The hot spot hypothesis will be tested during a Titan flyby on July 2, 2006, when the visual and infrared spectrometer will take nighttime images of this area. If it is hot, it will glow at night. This color image was created from separate images in the 1.7 micron (blue), 2.0 micron (green), and 5.0 micron (red) spectral windows through which it is possible to see Titan's surface. The yellow that humans see has a wavelength of about 0.5 microns, so the colors shown are between 3 and 10 times more red than the human eye can detect. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional information on the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer visit http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu . Credit:NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
| Date |
May 25, 2005 |
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An Infrared Map of Titan
| Description |
This global infrared map of Titan was composed with data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer taken during the last two Titan flybys, on Dec. 26, 2005, and Jan. 15, 2006. |
| Full Description |
This global infrared map of Titan was composed with data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer taken during the last two Titan flybys, on Dec. 26, 2005, and Jan. 15, 2006. The map was constructed from false-color images taken at wavelengths of 1.6 microns shown in blue, 2.01 microns in green, and 5 microns in red. All three images are of reflected sunlight. The viewing geometry of the December flyby is roughly on the opposite hemisphere of the flyby in January. There are several important features to note in the map. First, the globe of Titan exhibits two major types of terrain, one is very bright, and a darker one seems to be concentrated near the equator. Titan also has two very bright regions, the large one known as Tui Reggio, located at approximately 25 degrees south latitude and 130 degrees west longitude, and the other as Hotei Arcus, at 20 degrees south latitude and 80 degrees west longitude. These regions are thought to be surface deposits, probably of volcanic origin, and may be water and/or carbon dioxide frozen from the volcanic vapor. The western margins of Tui Reggio have a complex flow-like structure consistent with eruptive phenomena. The reddish feature at the south pole is Titan's south polar cloud system, which was very bright during the December flyby. The impact crater Sinlap is clearly visible at approximately latitude 13 degrees north and longitude 16 degrees west. The poorly resolved regions between longitudes of 30 degrees and 150 degrees east will be filled in during subsequent flybys. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team homepage is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu. *Credit:* NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
| Date |
February 10, 2006 |
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Martian Meteorite
| title |
Martian Meteorite |
| description |
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found an iron meteorite, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel according to readings from spectrometers on the rover. Only a small fraction of the meteorites fallen on Earth are similarly metal-rich. Others are rockier. As an example, the meteorite that blasted the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona is similar in composition. "This is a huge surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. The meteorite, dubbed "Heat Shield Rock," sits near debris of Opportunity's heat shield on the surface of Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that has been Opportunity's home since the robot landed on Mars nearly one year ago. "I never thought we would get to use our instruments on a rock from someplace other than Mars," Squyres said. "Think about where an iron meteorite comes from: a destroyed planet or planetesimal that was big enough to differentiate into a metallic core and a rocky mantle." Rover-team scientists are wondering whether some rocks that Opportunity has seen atop the ground surface are rocky meteorites. "Mars should be hit by a lot more rocky meteorites than iron meteorites," Squyres said. "We've been seeing lots of cobbles out on the plains, and this raises the possibility that some of them may in fact be meteorites. We may be investigating some of those in coming weeks. The key is not what we'll learn about meteorites -- we have lots of meteorites on Earth -- but what the meteorites can tell us about Meridiani Planum." The numbers of exposed meteorites could be an indication of whether the plain is gradually eroding away or being built up. NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin said, "Exploring meteorites is a vital part of NASA's scientific agenda, and discovering whether there are storehouses of them on Mars opens new research possibilities, including further incentives for robotic and then human-based sample-return missions. Mars continues to provide unexpected science 'gold,' and our rovers have proven the value of mobile exploration with this latest finding." Initial observation of Heat Shield Rock from a distance with Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer suggested a metallic composition and raised speculation last week that it was a meteorite. The rover drove close enough to use its Moessbauer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometers, confirming the meteorite identification over the weekend. Opportunity and Spirit successfully completed their primary three-month missions on Mars in April 2004. NASA has extended their missions twice because the rovers have remained in good condition to continue exploring Mars longer than anticipated. They have found geological evidence of past wet environmental conditions that might have, been hospitable to life. Opportunity has driven a total of 2.10 kilometers (1.30 miles). Minor mottling from dust has appeared in images from the rover's rear hazard-identification camera since Opportunity entered the area of its heat-shield debris, said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., rover project manager. The rover team plans to begin driving Opportunity south toward a circular feature called "Vostok" within about a week. Spirit has driven a total of 4.05 kilometers (2.52 miles). It has been making slow progress uphill toward a ridge on "Husband Hill" inside Gusev Crater. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Victoria Crater' at Meridian
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| title |
Victoria Crater' at Meridiani Planum |
| date |
10.06.2006 |
| description |
This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows "Victoria crater," an impact crater at Meridiani Planum, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately 800 meters (half a mile) in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material. Layered sedimentary rocks are exposed along the inner wall of the crater, and boulders that have fallen from the crater wall are visible on the crater floor. The floor of the crater is occupied by a striking field of sand dunes. Since January 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been operating at Meridiani Planum. Five days before this image was taken, Opportunity arrived at the rim of Victoria crater, after a drive of more than 9 kilometers (over 5 miles). The rover can be seen in this image, at roughly the "ten o'clock" position along the rim of the crater. This view is a portion of an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on Oct. 3, 2006. The complete image is centered at minus7.8 degrees latitude, 279.5 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 297 kilometers (185.6 miles). At this distance the image scale is 29.7 centimeters (12 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects about 89 centimeters (35 inches) across are resolved. The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel and north is up. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:30 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 59.7 degrees, thus the sun was about 30.3 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 113.6 degrees, the season on Mars is northern summer. This is an enhanced-color view generated from images acquired by the HiRISE camera using its red filter and blue-green filter. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mroor http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UA |
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Gullies with Characteristics
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| title |
Gullies with Characteristics of Water-Carved Channels |
| description |
False-color image of gully channels in a crater in the southern highlands of Mars, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The gullies emanating from the rocky cliffs near the crater's rim (upper left) show meandering and braided patterns typical of water-carved channels. North is approximately up and illumination is from the left, scale, 26 centimeters per pixel. A link to the full HiRISE image that includes this view is online at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_003583_1425 Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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Meteor Crater
| title |
Meteor Crater |
| description |
Meteor Crater is one of the youngest and best-preserved impact craters on Earth. The crater formed roughly 50,000 years ago when a 30-meter-wide, iron-rich meteor weighing 100,000 tons struck the Arizona desert at an estimated 20 kilometers per second. The resulting explosion exceeded the combined force of today's nuclear arsenals and created a 1.1-kilometer-wide, 200-meter-deep crater. Meteor Crater is a simple crater since it has no central peak or rim terraces. The crater formed in layered Paleozoic age sedimentary rocks, some of which are exposed in the nearby Grand Canyon. These rocks have been uplifted and in some cases overturned at the crater's raised rim. Debris sliding and subsequent erosion have partially filled the bottom of the crater with minor amounts of rim material and sediment. The heavily cratered history of the Moon indicates that Earth also experienced many impact events early in its history. The processes of erosion and plate tectonics have combined to erase nearly all Earth's craters. To date, only about 150 impact craters have been identified on Earth, and most of those are severely eroded or buried by later rock units. The origin of this classic, simple meteorite impact crater was long the subject of controversy. The discovery of fragments of the Canyon Diablo meteorite, including fragments within the breccia deposits that partially fill the structure, and a range of shock metamorphic features in the target sandstone proved its impact origin. Target rocks include Paleozoic carbonates and sandstones, these rocks were overturned just outside the rim during ejection. The hummocky deposits just beyond the rim are remnants of the ejecta blanket. This aerial view shows the dramatic expression of the crater in the arid landscape. The crater is named for Daniel Moreau Barringer, a mining entrepeneur who championed an impact origin for the crater early in the 20th. *Image Credit*: D. Roddy (U.S. Geological Survey), Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Callisto's Har Crater
| title |
Callisto's Har Crater |
| date |
11.04.1997 |
| description |
This image shows a heavily cratered region near Callisto's equator. It was taken by the Galileo spacecraft's Solid-State Imaging System on its ninth orbit around Jupiter. North is to the top of the image. The 105-kilometer double ring crater in the center of the image is named Har. Har displays an unusual rounded mound on its floor. The origin of the mound is unclear but probably involves uplift of ice-rich materials from below, either as a "rebound" immediately following the impact that formed the crater or as a later process. Har is older than the prominent 41-kilometer crater superposed on its western rim. The large crater partially visible in the northeast corner of the image is called Tindr. Chains of secondary craters (craters formed from the impact of materials thrown out of the main crater during an impact) originating from Tindr crosscut the eastern rim of Har. The image, centered at 3.30S latitude and 357.90W longitude, covers an area of 245 kilometers by 230 kilometers. The Sun illuminates the scene from the west (left). The smallest distinguishable features in the image are about 294 meters across. This image was obtained on June 25, 1997, when Galileo was 14,080 kilometers from Callisto. *Image Credit*: Arizona State University |
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Apollo 11 Landing Site
| title |
Apollo 11 Landing Site |
| description |
The landing site was selected in a smooth mare area primarily for reasons of mission safety. This is an Earth-based telescopic view. The arrow points to the landing site in the southern portion of Mare Tranquillitatis. The two large craters near the middle of the lower margin of the photograph are Theophilus and Cyrillus. The rim of Theophilus Crater truncates (cuts across) the rim of Cyrillus Crater, indicating that Theophilus is the younger crater. Ejecta from Theophilus may be present in the vicinity of the Apollo 11 landing site. Craters in the vicinity of the landing site include Moltke (the bright-rayed crater to the lower right of the arrow), Sabine (left of arrow) and Maskelyne (upper right of arrow). *Image Credit*: NASA, U.S. Air Force Photographic Lunar Atlas and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona |
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Callisto Landslides
| title |
Callisto Landslides |
| date |
12.10.1997 |
| description |
Galileo images of the surface of Jupiter's moon Callisto have revealed large landslide deposits within two large impact craters seen in the right side of this image. The two landslides are about 3 to 3.5 kilometers in length. They occurred when material from the crater wall failed under the influence of gravity, perhaps aided by seismic disturbances from nearby impacts. These deposits are interesting because they traveled several kilometers from the crater wall in the absence of an atmosphere or other fluids that might have lubricated the flow. This could indicate that the surface material on Callisto is very fine-grained, and perhaps is being "fluffed" by electrostatic forces that allowed the landslide debris to flow extended distances in the absence of an atmosphere. This image was acquired on September 16, 1997, by the Solid-State Imaging System onboard the Galileo spacecraft during it's tenth orbit around Jupiter. North is to the top of the image, with the Sun illuminating the scene from the right. The center of this image is located near 25.30N latitude, 141.30W longitude. The image, which is 55 kilometers by 44 kilometers across, was acquired at a resolution of 100 meters per picture element. *Image Credit*: Arizona State University |
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Europa Impact
| title |
Europa Impact |
| date |
04.04.1997 |
| description |
This feature on Jupiter's moon Europa was seen as a dark, diffuse circular patch on a previous Galileo global image of Europa's leading hemisphere. The bulls-eye pattern appears to be a 140-kilometer-wide impact scar (about the size of the island of Hawai'i) that formed as the surface fractured minutes after a mountain-sized asteroid or comet slammed into the satellite. This approximately 214-kilometer-wide picture is the product of three images that have been processed in false color to enhance shapes and compositions. North is toward the top of this picture, which is illuminated from sunlight coming from the west. This color composite reveals a sequence of events, that have modified the surface of Europa. The earliest event was the impact that formed the Tyre structure at 340N latitude and 146.50W longitude. This impact was followed by the formation of the reddish lines superposed on Tyre. The red color designates areas that are probably a dirty water-ice mixture. The fine blue-green lines crossing the region from west to east appear to be ridges that formed after the crater. The images were taken on April 4, 1997, at a resolution of 595 meters per picture element and a range of 29,000 kilometers. The images were taken by the Galileo spacecraft's Solid-State Imaging System. *Image Credit*: University of Arizona |
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Callisto Impact Craters
| title |
Callisto Impact Craters |
| date |
12.07.1998 |
| description |
This composite of Galileo spacecraft images of Jupiter's icy moon Callisto combines data from two orbits showing several types of impact craters. North is to the top of the picture, the Sun illuminates the surface from the east. The global image on the right shows one of the largest impact structures on Callisto, the Asgard multiring structure located near 300N latitude, 1420W longitude. The Asgard structure is approximately 1700 kilometers across and consists of a bright central zone surrounded by discontinuous rings. The rings include degraded ridges near the central zone and troughs at the outer margin, which resulted from deformation of the icy crust following impact. Smaller impacts have smashed into Callisto after the formation of Asgard. The young, bright-rayed crater Burr located on the northern part of Asgard is about 75 kilometers across. Galileo images show a third type of impact crater in this image, a dome crater named Doh, located in the bright central plains of Asgard. Doh (left image) is about 55 kilometers in diameter, while the dome is about 25 kilometers across. Dome craters contain a central mound instead of a bowl-shaped depression or central mountain (peak) typically seen in larger impact craters. This type of crater could represent penetration into a slushy zone beneath the surface of the Asgard impact. The global image on the right was taken on November 4, 1996, at a distance of 111,900 kilometers by the Solid-State Imaging Camera onboard NASA's Galileo spacecraft during its third orbit around Jupiter. The image on the left was obtained at a resolution of 90 meters per picture element on September 16, 1997, during Galileo's tenth orbit when the spacecraft was less than 9500 kilometers from Callisto. *Image Credit*: Arizona State University |
|
High-Resolution MOC Image of
…
| title |
High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos |
| date |
08.19.1998 |
| description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. This image shows a close-up of the largest crater on Phobos, Stickney, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Individual boulders are visible on the near rim of the crater, and are presumed to be ejecta blocks from the impact that formed Stickney. Some of these boulders are enormous - more than 50 meters (160 feet) across. Also crossing at and near the rim of Stickney are shallow, elongated depressions called grooves. This crater is nearly half the size of Phobos and these grooves may be fractures caused by its formation. Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. *Image Credit*: Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Lab) and NASA |
|
Gullies in Sirenum Terra, Ma
…
| title |
Gullies in Sirenum Terra, Mars |
| date |
10.03.2006 |
| description |
This enhanced-color view shows gullies in an unnamed crater in the Terra Sirenum region of Mars. It is a sub-image from a larger view imaged by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Oct. 3, 2006. This scene is about 254 meters (about 830 feet) wide. The upper and left regions of this scene are in shadow, yet color variations are still apparent. The high signal to noise ratio of the HiRISE camera allows for colors to be distinguished in shadows. This allows dark features to be identified as true albedo features versus topographical features. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona |
|
PKS 1127-145: Chandra Scores
…
| Name |
PKS 1127-145: Chandra Scores A Double Bonus With A Distant Quasar |
| Category |
Quasars & Active Galaxies |
| Release Date |
February 06, 2002 |
|
Evidence for Recent Liquid W
…
| Title |
Evidence for Recent Liquid Water on Mars |
| Full Description |
Newton Crater is a large basin formed by an asteroid impact that probably occurred more than 3 billion years ago. It is approximately 287 kilometers (178 miles) across. The picture shown here (top) highlights the north wall of a specific, smaller crater located in the southwestern quarter of Newton Crater (above). The crater of interest was also formed by an impact, it is about 7 km (4.4 mi) across, which is about 7 times bigger than the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona in North America. The north wall of the small crater has many narrow gullies eroded into it. These are hypothesized to have been formed by flowing water and debris flows. Debris transported with the water created lobed and finger-like deposits at the base of the crater wall where it intersects the floor (bottom center top image). Many of the finger-like deposits have small channels indicating that a liquid, most likely water, flowed in these areas. Hundreds of individual water and debris flow events might have occurred to create the scene shown here. Each outburst of water from higher up on the crater slopes would have constituted a competition between evaporation, freezing, and gravity. The individual deposits at the ends of channels in this MOC image mosaic were used to get a rough estimate of the minimum amount of water that might be involved in each flow event. This is done first by assuming that the deposits are like debris flows on Earth. In a debris flow, no less than about 10% (and no more than 30%) of their volume is water. Second, the volume of an apron deposit is estimated by measuring the area covered in the MOC image and multiplying it by a conservative estimate of thickness, 2 meters (6.5 feet). For a flow containing only 10% water, these estimates conservatively suggest that about 2.5 million liters (660,000 gallons) of water are involved in each event, this is enough to fill about 7 community-sized swimming pools or enough to supply 20 people with their water needs for a year. The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) high resolution view is located near 41.1S, 159.8W and is a mosaic of three different pictures acquired between January and May 2000. The MOC scene is illuminated from the left, north is up. |
| Date |
06/22/2000 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
|
Centaur's Bright Surface Spo
…
| Title |
Centaur's Bright Surface Spot Could be Crater of Fresh Ice |
|
Hubble Images of Asteroids H
…
| Title |
Hubble Images of Asteroids Help Astronomers Prepare for Spacecraft Visit |
|
Hubble Images of Asteroids H
…
| Title |
Hubble Images of Asteroids Help Astronomers Prepare for Spacecraft Visit |
|
Hubble Images of Asteroids H
…
| Title |
Hubble Images of Asteroids Help Astronomers Prepare for Spacecraft Visit |
|
Zoom to the Meteor Crater, A
…
| Title |
Zoom to the Meteor Crater, Arizona |
| Abstract |
The Earth and Mars are two planets which evolved very differently. By studying locations on Earth whose environment might be similar with that of Mars, scientists are able to theorize about 'the red planet' as well. Meteor Crater is one such study site in the Colorado Plateau, 73 km east of Flagstaff, Arizona. This terrestrial impact crater, 1.2 km in diameter and 185 m deep, is clearly visible in satellite imagery. |
| Completed |
2006-01-31 |
|
Meteor Crater Topography
| Title |
Meteor Crater Topography |
| Abstract |
The Earth and Mars are two planets which evolved very differently. By studying locations on Earth whose environment might be similar with that of Mars, scientists are able to theorize about 'the red planet' as well. Meteor Crater is one such study site in the Colorado Plateau, 73 km east of Flagstaff, Arizona. After the meteorite hit the surface of the Arizona desert thousands of years ago, some of the rocks were pushed up along the edge to form a rim around the crater. High resolution (2 m) digital elevation of the site, collected by aerial overflights of the region, is shown here overlain with a natural color IKONOS image. |
| Completed |
2006-01-31 |
|
Meteor Crater Topography
| Title |
Meteor Crater Topography |
| Abstract |
The Earth and Mars are two planets which evolved very differently. By studying locations on Earth whose environment might be similar with that of Mars, scientists are able to theorize about 'the red planet' as well. Meteor Crater is one such study site in the Colorado Plateau, 73 km east of Flagstaff, Arizona. After the meteorite hit the surface of the Arizona desert thousands of years ago, some of the rocks were pushed up along the edge to form a rim around the crater. High resolution (2 m) digital elevation of the site, collected by aerial overflights of the region, is shown here overlain with a natural color IKONOS image. |
| Completed |
2006-01-31 |
|
Kebira Crater
| Title |
Kebira Crater |
| Description |
. Also, the double-ringed crater sits in sandstone that is 100 million years old, which means that the impact probably occurred around 100 million years ago. In the intervening time, wind and water have worn features of the crater away, making it hard to identify. For example, the beds of two ancient rivers run from east to west across the crater, leaving two gaps in the inner ring on the upper right side. NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on Landsat-7 [ http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] data provided by the UMD Global Land Cover Facility [ http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/index.shtml ], No, satellite images do not show any craters in Egypt's Western Desert that can account for the mysterious "Desert Glass" found there, Dr. Farouk El-Baz had just finished telling filmmakers interested in exploring the origins of the yellow-green glass fragments in late February 2006. But the interview made him wonder: could satellite data show him where the crater was after all? As a geologist who had spent most of his career studying the Earth's major deserts, he knew that the glass formed after a massive meteorite hit the desert with enough energy to splatter chunks of melted sand across the extensive fields where fragments are common today. But beyond the glass, no evidence of such an impact had ever been found. Now the director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, El-Baz decided to take another look at satellite data of the Western Desert to see if he could find the elusive crater. After the cameras stopped rolling, El-Baz sorted through image after image of the Western Desert when he came across a ring of rocks surrounded by traces of an outer ring: the telltale markings of an impact crater. He called Boston University research associate Eman Ghoneim, and she agreed that the image revealed a crater. The massive crater measured 31 kilometers across and was large enough to contain 70,000 football fields, the site was a very probable source of the glass. This Landsat-7 image, taken on March 15, 2001, shows the crater with pale fields of shifting sand surrounding the darker sandstone that bears the impression of the impact. The outer rim of the crater, mostly buried by sand, is outlined with a white dotted line. El-Baz named the crater "Kebira," which means "large" in Arabic. Because a crater is about twenty times larger than the meteorite that creates it, the meteorite that hit the Western Desert was larger than the famous Meteor (Barringer) Crater [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4598 ] in Arizona, which is 1.2 kilometers wide. By contrast, the Chicxulub Crater [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=11268 ] left on the Yucatan Peninsula by the meteorite believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is ten times larger than Kebira, measuring 150 to 300 kilometers wide. But why had no one noticed the giant Kebira crater before? El-Baz speculates that the crater's massive size hid it in plain view. "The search for craters typically concentrates on small features, especially those that can be identified on the ground. The advantage of a view from space is that it allows us to see regional patterns and the big picture," he said in a Boston University press release [ http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news/releases/display.php?id=1073 ] |
|
Pinacate Biosphere Reserve
| Title |
Pinacate Biosphere Reserve |
| Description |
Pinacate National Park and Biosphere Reserve is a 770-square-mile (2,000-square-kilometer) volcanic field in the Sonora province of Mexico, near the Arizona border. Surrounded by the Sonora Desert, this field contains more than 300 volcanic vents and cinder cones, including at least 10 maar craters. Maar eruptions are a rare form of volcano that erupts violently when rising magma meets underground water, producing a pocket of highly pressurized steam that blows a nearly circular hole in the crust above. The largest crater in the Pinacate Field is Cerro Elegante, a maar crater about a kilometer in diameter. Though parts of Pinacate are so barren and other-worldy that the area served as a training ground for moonward-bound astronauts, many places do support plant and animal life, including creosote bushes, prickly pear cactus, ironwood trees, the Gila woodpecker, and the Rufous hummingbird. This image of the park was captured by the Landsat 7 satellite on December 5, 2002, using bands 7, 5, and 2. The dark cinders covering the lava plain dominate the center of the scene, and numerous circular craters are visible. To the south, the sands of the Sonora Desert are carved into sinuous dunes. At top center, a diagonal gray line marks a road that runs toward the Mexico-U.S. border. Image courtesy the USGS Landsat Project. |
|
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve
| Title |
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve |
| Description |
The Pinacates region of Mexico's Sonoran Desert is one of the most unique and striking landscapes in North America. Located just a few miles south of the Mexico-Arizona border, this volcanic field originated with the rifting of the Gulf of California millions of years ago, but the features seen today (volcanic peaks, lava flows, cinder cones and collapsed craters) formed in the late Pleistocene period (2 million to 11,000 years ago). The volcanic range is surrounded by one of North America's largest dune fields, Gran Desierto. The natural history of the region includes thousands of years of human occupation, it is the aboriginal homeland of the O'Odham tribe, also known as the Papago. The region also served as an early training site for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. This ecosystem supports a wonderfully diverse northern Sonoran desert assemblage of plants and animals, including large saguaro cacti, ocotillo, many species of reptiles, amphibians, and insects. In fact, the name Pinacate is derived from "pinacatl," the Aztec name for the desert stink beetle, which is common in the region. The natural and cultural resource management of the region, including the archeological sites and the high biodiversity, is now guaranteed: the site was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. Early in May 2004, the new Space Station crew (ISS-9) obtained high-resolution images of the Pinacates, allowing for detailed observations of the surface features. One example is a large volcanic crater (see box, and detail below) called Crater Elegante which is one of the most prominent and interesting features of the Pinacates. For scale, the diameter of the crater is approximately 1500 meters. These detailed images can be used to monitor vegetation and development in the region. Astronaut photographs ISS009-E-5953 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5953 ] and 5944 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5944 ] were acquired May 7, 2004 with a Kodak DCS760 digital camera equipped with 80 and 400 mm lenses (respectively), and are provided by the Earth Observations Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ ] supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve
| Title |
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve |
| Description |
The Pinacates region of Mexico's Sonoran Desert is one of the most unique and striking landscapes in North America. Located just a few miles south of the Mexico-Arizona border, this volcanic field originated with the rifting of the Gulf of California millions of years ago, but the features seen today (volcanic peaks, lava flows, cinder cones and collapsed craters) formed in the late Pleistocene period (2 million to 11,000 years ago). The volcanic range is surrounded by one of North America's largest dune fields, Gran Desierto. The natural history of the region includes thousands of years of human occupation, it is the aboriginal homeland of the O'Odham tribe, also known as the Papago. The region also served as an early training site for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. This ecosystem supports a wonderfully diverse northern Sonoran desert assemblage of plants and animals, including large saguaro cacti, ocotillo, many species of reptiles, amphibians, and insects. In fact, the name Pinacate is derived from "pinacatl," the Aztec name for the desert stink beetle, which is common in the region. The natural and cultural resource management of the region, including the archeological sites and the high biodiversity, is now guaranteed: the site was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. Early in May 2004, the new Space Station crew (ISS-9) obtained high-resolution images of the Pinacates, allowing for detailed observations of the surface features. One example is a large volcanic crater (see box, and detail below) called Crater Elegante which is one of the most prominent and interesting features of the Pinacates. For scale, the diameter of the crater is approximately 1500 meters. These detailed images can be used to monitor vegetation and development in the region. Astronaut photographs ISS009-E-5953 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5953 ] and 5944 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5944 ] were acquired May 7, 2004 with a Kodak DCS760 digital camera equipped with 80 and 400 mm lenses (respectively), and are provided by the Earth Observations Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ ] supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve
| Title |
Pinacates Biosphere Reserve |
| Description |
The Pinacates region of Mexico's Sonoran Desert is one of the most unique and striking landscapes in North America. Located just a few miles south of the Mexico-Arizona border, this volcanic field originated with the rifting of the Gulf of California millions of years ago, but the features seen today (volcanic peaks, lava flows, cinder cones and collapsed craters) formed in the late Pleistocene period (2 million to 11,000 years ago). The volcanic range is surrounded by one of North America's largest dune fields, Gran Desierto. The natural history of the region includes thousands of years of human occupation, it is the aboriginal homeland of the O'Odham tribe, also known as the Papago. The region also served as an early training site for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. This ecosystem supports a wonderfully diverse northern Sonoran desert assemblage of plants and animals, including large saguaro cacti, ocotillo, many species of reptiles, amphibians, and insects. In fact, the name Pinacate is derived from "pinacatl," the Aztec name for the desert stink beetle, which is common in the region. The natural and cultural resource management of the region, including the archeological sites and the high biodiversity, is now guaranteed: the site was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. Early in May 2004, the new Space Station crew (ISS-9) obtained high-resolution images of the Pinacates, allowing for detailed observations of the surface features. One example is a large volcanic crater (see box, and detail below) called Crater Elegante which is one of the most prominent and interesting features of the Pinacates. For scale, the diameter of the crater is approximately 1500 meters. These detailed images can be used to monitor vegetation and development in the region. Astronaut photographs ISS009-E-5953 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5953 ] and 5944 [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=ISS009&roll=E&frame=5944 ] were acquired May 7, 2004 with a Kodak DCS760 digital camera equipped with 80 and 400 mm lenses (respectively), and are provided by the Earth Observations Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program [ http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ ] supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. [ http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
San Francisco Peaks Volcano
…
| Title |
San Francisco Peaks Volcano Field |
| Description |
Northern Arizona is best known for the Grand Canyon. Less widely known are the hundreds of geologically young volcanoes scattered across the southern portion of the Colorado Plateau at the eastern foothills of the San Francisco Peaks. This image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) [ http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite shows the numerous cinder cones, hills of volcanic ash and rock fragments, in the San Francisco Volcanic Field in the foreground (bottom part of the scene) with San Francisco Mountain in the background. ASTER image data from October 21, 2003, were draped over topographic data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The picture is oriented as if you were looking generally westward. The large version of the image is centered near 35.3 degrees north latitude and 111.5 degrees west longitude. The developed areas of the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona, appear as bright white flecks against the surrounding vegetation. To the north of the city rises Elden Mountain, separated by a canyon from the larger San Francisco Mountain. The catastrophic result of an eruption at San Francisco Mountain about 400,000 years ago is visible in the collapsed look of the mountain's eastern flank. Lava and other volcanic material appear purple, and the cinder cone field is tinged with green, as vegetation begins to colonize the newly laid landscape. Among the most dramatic flows is the Bonito Lava Flow. Native Americans were living in this region when the cinder cone volcano known as Sunset Crater (named for the red-tinged rocks and cinders on its slopes) was born around 900 years ago. Accounts of the volcanic activity, which included several eruptions between A.D. 1064 and 1180, describe earthquakes, fire bombs, billowing ash, falling cinders, forest fires, and lava flows. The region is part of the sacred lands of several modern Pueblo peoples, and Sunset Crater is protected as a National Monument. NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team [ http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
The Grand Canyon
| Title |
The Grand Canyon |
| Description |
True Color (900 Kb) Anaglyph (900Kb) Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon are captured in this pair of Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) images from December 31, 2000. The above image is a true color view from the nadir (vertical) camera. A stereo composite image was generated using data from MISR's vertical and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the stereo image in 3-D requires the use of red/blue glasses with the red filter placed over your left eye. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. In addition to the Grand Canyon itself, which is visible in the western (lower) half of the images, other landmarks include Lake Powell, on the left, and Humphreys Peak and Sunset Crater National Monument on the right. Meteor Crater appears as a small dark depression with a brighter rim, and is just visible along the upper right-hand edge. Can you find it? Images courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
The Grand Canyon
| Title |
The Grand Canyon |
| Description |
True Color (900 Kb) Anaglyph (900Kb) Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon are captured in this pair of Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) images from December 31, 2000. The above image is a true color view from the nadir (vertical) camera. A stereo composite image was generated using data from MISR's vertical and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the stereo image in 3-D requires the use of red/blue glasses with the red filter placed over your left eye. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. In addition to the Grand Canyon itself, which is visible in the western (lower) half of the images, other landmarks include Lake Powell, on the left, and Humphreys Peak and Sunset Crater National Monument on the right. Meteor Crater appears as a small dark depression with a brighter rim, and is just visible along the upper right-hand edge. Can you find it? Images courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
The Grand Canyon
| Title |
The Grand Canyon |
| Description |
True Color (900 Kb) Anaglyph (900Kb) Northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon are captured in this pair of Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) images from December 31, 2000. The above image is a true color view from the nadir (vertical) camera. A stereo composite image was generated using data from MISR's vertical and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the stereo image in 3-D requires the use of red/blue glasses with the red filter placed over your left eye. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. In addition to the Grand Canyon itself, which is visible in the western (lower) half of the images, other landmarks include Lake Powell, on the left, and Humphreys Peak and Sunset Crater National Monument on the right. Meteor Crater appears as a small dark depression with a brighter rim, and is just visible along the upper right-hand edge. Can you find it? Images courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] |
|
Strangers on Mars
| Title |
Strangers on Mars |
| Explanation |
This view [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08576 ] from the winter station of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, looks across the rock strewn landscape of Gusev Crater [ http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/30dec_gusevcrater.htm ]. The dark boulders and distant hills are characteristic of the region, but the two light colored rocks in the foreground of this cropped image are - like Spirit [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051214.html ] itself - most probably strangers to the Red Planet, believed to be iron [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050121.html ] meteorites [ http://meteorites.lpl.arizona.edu/ ]. Informally named for sites in Antarctica [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051125.html ] they have been dubbed "Zhong Shan" and "Allan Hills." Zhong Shan is the Antarctic base of the People's Republic of China. Allan Hills is the icy location where many Martian meteorites have been found [ http://geology.cwru.edu/~ansmet/ ] on planet Earth, including the controversial ALH84001 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960817.html ], suggested to contain evidence for fossilized Martian microbial life. |
|
Mars Rover at Victoria Crate
…
| Title |
Mars Rover at Victoria Crater Imaged from Orbit |
| Explanation |
An unusual spot has been found on Mars that scientists believe is not natural in origin. The spot appears mobile and is now hypothesized to be a robot [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot ] created by an intelligent species [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,989714,00.html ] alien to Mars. In fact, the spot appears to be NASA's robotic Opportunity rover currently rolling across Mars. The ability to see the Martian rover from orbit has recently been demonstrated by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment [ http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ ] on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter ] (MRO). The new spacecraft achieved orbit around Mars in 2006 March. Last week, MRO imaged the location of Victoria Crater [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061002.html ] and the rover Opportunity [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051214.html ] that had just arrived there. In the above image [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08816 ] at spectacularly high resolution [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060410.html ], objects about one meter in size are resolved, and this includes the rolling rover. Such images may help scientists better determine if any safe path exists for Opportunity to enter large crater. In the inset image [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08813 ] on the upper left, the whole of Victoria Crater [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_crater ] was also imaged by MRO. |
|
22 Miles From Eros
| Title |
22 Miles From Eros |
| Explanation |
Last month the NEAR Shoemaker [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/Education/model.html ] spacecraft swooped closer [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/news/flash/00jul07_1.html ] to Eros, orbiting only 22 miles (36 kilometers) from [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980919.html ] the center of the asteroid. These two images taken on July 19 (left) [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/iod/20000801/index.html ] and July 24 (right) [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/iod/20000731/index.html ] reveal the diminutive world's [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000224.html ] pocked and mottled surface in amazing detail, showing features as small as 19 feet (6 meters) across. Eros is thought to be a primordial [ http://www.jhuapl.edu/public/pr/000530.htm ], undifferentiated asteroid [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/ asteroids.html ] based on X-ray and gamma-ray [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/sci_updates/00jun20.html ] studies of its surface composition. In the left picture, its surface layer or regolith [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/sci_updates/00jul05.html ] is seen to be laced with bright and dark regions while in the right hand image dark regolith appears [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/iod/20000707/index.html ] to have filled in some crater floors. The left and right images span an area about 2,600 feet (800 meters) and 3,000 ft (900 meters) wide respectively. On July 31, NEAR Shoemaker returned to [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/flash/00aug01_1.html ] its familiar 31 mile (50 kilometer) orbit, circling [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/orbits.htm#orbits ] Eros serenely at about 6 miles per hour. |
|
Eros At Sunset
| Title |
Eros At Sunset |
| Explanation |
Gleaming in the rays of the setting sun, boulders litter the rugged surface of asteroid 433 Eros [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/eros/ ]. The brightest boulder, at the edge of the large, shadowy crater near this picture's bottom center, is about 30 meters (100 feet) across. In orbit around Eros since February 2000, the NEAR Shoemaker [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/ ] spacecraft's camera recorded the dramatic view [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/iod/20000821/index.html ] earlier this month from an altitude of about 50 kilometers. Eros itself orbits [ http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low/articles/o/ o018000416f.html ] the Sun with a perihelion [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ dictionary.html#perihelion ] of 1.13 Astronomical Units [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/ answers/980122b.html ] (AU) and aphelion [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ dictionary.html#aphelion ] of 1.78 AU. Part of a class of near-Earth asteroids [ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo.html ], it spends much of its time between the orbits of Mars (at 1.5 AU) and Earth (at 1 AU) ... but it wasn't always that way. Eros and other near-Earth asteroids [ http://neo.planetary.org/ABCsOfNEOs/index.html ] originally orbited in the main asteroid belt [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/ asteroids.html ], between Jupiter [ http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiter/jupiter.html ] and Mars [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ marsfact.html ]. Over time, the gravitational influence of Jupiter and other planets perturbed their orbits sending them on trajectories closer [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000226.html ] to Earth. |
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Titania's Trenches
| Title |
Titania's Trenches |
| Explanation |
British astronomer Sir William Herschel [ http://star.arm.ac.uk/history/herschel.html ] discovered Titania and Oberon in January of 1787. He wasn't reading Shakespeare's [ http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html ]"A Midsummer Night's Dream" though, he was making the first telescopic observations of moons of the planet Uranus [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/uranus.html ] (a planet which he himself discovered in 1781 [ http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/ HistTopics/Neptune_and_Pluto.html ]). In January of 1986, nearly 200 years later, NASA's robot explorer Voyager 2 became the only spacecraft to visit the remote Uranian [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990531.html ] system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971103.html ]. Above is Voyager's highest resolution picture of Titania [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ PIAGenCatalogPage.pl?PIA00039 ], Uranus' largest moon. The picture is a composite of two images recorded from a distance of 229,000 miles. The icy, rocky world [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960304.html ] is seen to be covered with impact craters. A prominent system of fault valleys, some nearly 1,000 miles long, is visible as trench-like features near the terminator (shadow line). Deposits of highly reflective material which may represent frost can be seen along the sun-facing valley walls. The large impact crater near the top, known as Gertrude [ http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/uranus/titacrat.html ], is about 180 miles across. At the bottom the 60 mile wide fault valley, Belmont Chasma [ http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/uranus/titachas.html ], cuts into crater Ursula. Titania itself [ http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/wall/titania.html ] is 1,000 miles in diameter. |
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Lunar Orbiter Views Crater C
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| Title |
Lunar Orbiter Views Crater Copernicus |
| Explanation |
To prepare for the Apollo landings [ http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ ], five Lunar Orbiter [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarorb.html ] spacecraft were launched during 1966 and 1967 to gather detailed images of our fair planet's large, natural satellite [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050430.html ]. Dramatic views returned by the spacecraft cameras included this stark moonscape [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00094 ]. The mosaic of 93 kilometer wide impact crater Copernicus features [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010513.html ] central peaks rising above the crater floor and rugged crater walls. "Note": As of today, June 16 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday ], the APOD editors [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050616.html ] have enjoyed presenting images from space missions, major observatories, and professional and amateur cosmic tourists alike for twelve years [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950616.html ]. A sincere thanks to our web site [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html ] operators, translators, and to all for the gracious email and continued APOD [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap_faq.html ] submissions! |
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3D Barringer Meteorite Crate
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| Title |
3D Barringer Meteorite Crater |
| Explanation |
Barringer Meteorite Crater [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater ], near Winslow, Arizona, is one of the best known impact craters on planet Earth [ http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/ barringer.htm ]. View this color stereo anaglyph [ http://www.photomeeting.de/astromeeting/miscellaneous/ 070616crater3D_d.htm ] with red/blue glasses [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/ VendorList.html#Glasses ] to get a dramatic sense of the crater's [ http://barringercrater.com/ ] dimensions -- one mile wide, and up to 570 feet deep. (A cross-eyed stereo pair is available here [ http://www.astromeeting.de/miscellaneous/ 070616crater_x.htm ].) Historically, this crater is the first recognized to be caused by an impact rather than a volcanic eruption. Modern research [ http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1479.html ] indicates that the impactor responsible, a 300,000 ton nickel-iron meteor [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/ meteorites.html ], struck some 50,000 years ago. Estimates suggest that it was about 130 feet across and was traveling over 26,000 miles per hour. For comparison, the asteroid or comet impactor that created the Chicxulub crater [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000226.html ] 65 million years ago, and is thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, was 6 to 12 miles across. |
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A Hole in Mars Close Up
| Title |
A Hole in Mars Close Up |
| Explanation |
In a close-up [ http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_004847_1745 ] from the HiRISE [ http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php ] instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this mysterious dark pit, about 150 meters across, lies on the north slope of ancient martian [ http://www.lukew.com/marsgeo/index.html ] volcano Arsia Mons [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02337 ]. Lacking raised rims and other impact crater characteristics, this pit and others like it [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/pressreleases/ 20070921a.html ] were originally identified in visible light and infrared images from the Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. While the visible light images showed only darkness within [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070528.html ], infrared thermal signatures [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey/images/ cave4.html ] indicated that the openings penetrated deep under the martian surface and perhaps were skylights to underground caverns. In this later image, the pit wall is partially illuminated by sunlight and seen to be nearly vertical, though the bottom, at least 78 meters below, is still not visible. The dark martian pits are thought to be related to collapse pits [ http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/gallery/kilauea/erz/ devilsthroat.html ] in the lava flow, similar [ http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/gallery/kilauea/erz/ upper/30424305-044_large.jpg ] to Hawaiian volcano pit craters [ http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Products/Pglossary/ PitCrater.html ]. |
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Asteroid 2007 TU24 Passes th
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| Title |
Asteroid 2007 TU24 Passes the Earth |
| Explanation |
Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by the Earth yesterday, posing no danger. The space rock, estimated [ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroid-20080125.html ] to be about 250 meters across, coasted by just outside the orbit of Earth's Moon. The passing was not very unusual [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050417.html ] -- small rocks strike Earth daily, and in 2003 a rock the size of a bus passed inside the orbit of the Moon, being detected only after passing [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031015.html ]. TU24 was notable partly because it was so large. Were TU24 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TU24 ] to have struck land, it might have caused a magnitude [ http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/magnitude.html ] seven earthquake [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19fMs633Td4 ] and left a city-sized crater [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990711.html ]. A perhaps larger danger would have occurred were TU24 [ http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001309/ ] to have struck the ocean and raised a large tsunami [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami ]. This radar image [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-014 ] was taken two days ago. The Arecibo Radio Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981129.html ] in Puerto Rico [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico ] broadcast radar that was reflected by the asteroid and then recorded by the Byrd Radio Telescope [ http://www.gb.nrao.edu/gbt/ ] in Green Bank [ http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/greenbank.shtml ], West Virginia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia ]. The resulting image [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-014 ] shows TU24 to have an oblong and irregular shape. TU24 [ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroid-20080128-clips.html ] was discovered only three months ago, indicating that other potentially hazardous asteroids [ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ ] might lurk in our Solar System [ http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] currently undetected. Objects like TU24 [ http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080128-asteroid-radar.html ] are hard to detect because they are so faint and move [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060328.html ] so fast. Humanity's ability to scan the sky to detect, catalog, and analyze such objects has increased notably [ http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/ ] in recent years. |
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Odyssey Over Mars
| Title |
Odyssey Over Mars |
| Explanation |
Scroll right and journey [ http://pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov/maps.html ] for 300 kilometers over Terra Sirenum [ http://www-pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/PDS/public/mapmaker/ mapmkr.htm ] in the cratered [ http://clasdean.la.asu.edu/news/images/msipix/ ] highlands of southern Mars [ http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/online.bks/mars/ contents.htm ]. The infrared view [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ PIAGenCatalogPage.pl?PIA03483 ], 32 kilometers wide, was recently recorded by the THEMIS [ http://themis.asu.edu/latest.html ] camera on board the orbiting Mars Odyssey [ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/present/ odyssey.html ] spacecraft. Beginning [ http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-ir_day_f1.html ] at the north (left) edge, the scene sweeps across the floor and over the rim of Koval'sky Crater. Continuing [ http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-ir_day_f2.html ] southward [ http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-ir_day_f3.html ] (right) of the crater's rim are lava flows [ http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/planet_volcano/mars/ Overview.html ] exhibiting fractures and numerous smaller impact craters. The infrared [ http://sirtf.caltech.edu/Education/Yellowstone/ gallery.html ] image was made in daylight hours, so sun-facing slopes are still warm and bright while shadowed areas are cool and dark. But rocky [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010721.html ] regions also tend to remain cooler [ http://sirtf.caltech.edu/Education/Zoo/ zoo.html ] and darker than their surroundings, likely corresponding to the dark blotchy terrain along the Koval'sky Crater floor and dark rings of rocky ejecta surrounding some of the smaller craters [ http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/mars/ marscrat.html ]. |
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Mimas: Small Moon with A Big
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| Title |
Mimas: Small Moon with A Big Crater |
| Explanation |
Mimas [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/mimas.html ] is one of the smaller moons of Saturn [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950705.html ] but shows one of the largest impact craters! In fact, if the impact had been much greater, it would have disrupted the entire satellite. The large crater has been named Herschel after the 1789 discoverer of Mimas, Sir William Herschel [ http://star.arm.ac.uk/history/herschel.html ]. Mimas' low mass produces a surface gravity just strong enough to create a spherical body but weak enough to allow such relatively large surface features. Mimas [ http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~cjhamil/SolarSystem/mimas.html ] is made of mostly water ice with a smattering of rock - so it is accurately described as a big dirty snowball. Voyager [ http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager.html ] 1 flew by in 1980 and took the above picture. |
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