Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Two separate images of Jupiter and its moon, Io, combine here to make this striking picture. Instruments onboard the New Horizons spacecraft recorded the image data when it flew past Jupiter in early 2007.

In the picture of Jupiter, the near-infrared imaging spectrometer highlights variations in the Jovian clouds, rendering the Great Red Spot (the prominent oval) in a bluish-white shade. The observation was manipulated in order to correct distortion introduced by the rotation of the planet during the scan.

The Io image is an approximately true-color composite which shows an eruption in progress on Io's night side, at the northern volcano Tvashtar. Lava glows red beneath a high volcanic plume, illuminated by sunlight. The plume appears blue due to scattering of light by small particles within.

--NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute and SPACE.com Staff

What a view! It's late summer, after dark, and you're flat on your back in a sleeping bag watching the camp fire's last embers drift up to the heavens. Overhead a magnificent band of stars divides the night�it's the Milky Way.

The Milky Way above a country road in Texas.

Credit: Larry Landolfi of Rochester, New Hampshire.

Now, imagine that scene doubled in brightness and beauty.

No, that's not quite right.

Imagine an entire galaxy of stars spinning overhead. The galaxy's blue-white core of young stars is surrounded by yellow octopus-arms of older siblings. Off to one side a faint red column of gas meanders away from the starry whirlpool and turns in mid-sky toward � you.

read full article

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The circular feature is 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across and lies near the south pole of Mars � a mystery when first seen in Mariner 9 and Viking Orbiter images during the 1970s. Now the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken new high resolution images that may help scientists interpret this Martian feature.

Bright areas are covered by carbon dioxide frost, with a "swiss cheese" pattern common at the south polar residual cap. The circular evenness of the depression suggests an impact crater, but there is no evidence of a crater rim or debris unless it lies beneath the frost. While the depression may have formed by collapse, the image is missing the typical ground fractures that form around a collapse pit. Further analysis of the data may eventually uncover more clues.

more: space.com - IoD

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
click for hi-res

Scroll right and cruise above the thin, icy rings of Saturn. This high resolution scan is a mosaic of images presented in natural color and recorded in May, over about 2.5 hours as the Cassini spacecraft passed above the unlit side of the rings. The rings themselves are seen to be composed of many individual ringlets. To help track your progress, the rings are labeled below, along with the distance from the center of the gas giant in kilometers. Major ring gaps are labeled above. The alphabetical designation of Saturn's rings is historical and related to their order of discovery; rings A and B are the bright rings separated by the Cassini division. In order of increasing distance from Saturn, the seven main rings run D,C,B,A,F,G,E. (Faint, outer rings G and E are not imaged here.)

more: NASA-APOD

composite image of Earth by night shows the city lights of the northern hemisphere and the illuminated crescent over Antarctica.

Credit: ESA 2005 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

The images were taken by the European Space Agency's Rosetta � the first mission designed to orbit and land on a comet � as the spacecraft made its closest approach to Earth during its second swing-by on November 13. The OSIRIS Wide Angle Camera captured the top image as Rosetta soared 49,700 miles (80,000 kilometers) above the Indian Ocean where local time approached midnight. The camera then snapped the bottom image as Rosetta was roughly 46,600 miles (75,000 kilometers) from Earth.

To find Baghdad, Hong Kong, or some other cities among the signs of human habitation that appear in the northern hemisphere, click here for more details.

After sending its picturesque postcard, Rosetta will head out to meet its comet target, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in 2014. The spacecraft originally launched in March 2004.

more from SPACE.com

Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (Astropics.com)

Explanation: Welcome to The World At Night. Sharing the night sky seen around the world, this view from Monument Valley, USA includes a picturesque foreground of famous buttes. Buttes are composed of hard volcanic rock left behind after water eroded away the surrounding soft rock. The two buttes on the image left are known as the Mittens, while Merrick Butte is on the right. Recorded just last week, planet Mars is at the left of the skyscape, a glowing beacon of orange that is the brightest object in the frame. To the right of Mars lies the constellation of Orion. Betelgeuse is the reddish star near the center and the Belt of Orion and the Orion Nebula are farther right. Finally, the bright blue star Rigel appears above Merrick Butte in this stunning view of The World At Night. NASA-APOD

check position at
36�59'21.85"N, 110� 5'2.77"W

Happy New Year!

g

cassini data febr. 2006.

Credit: VIMS Team, U. Arizona, ESA, NASA

Known for its bright ring system and many moons, gas giant Saturn looks strange and unfamiliar in this false-color view from the Cassini spacecraft. In fact, in this Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) mosaic the famous rings are almost invisible, seen edge-on cutting across picture center. The most striking contrast in the image is along the terminator or boundary between night and day. To the right (day side) blue-green hues are visible sunlight reflected from Saturn's cloud tops. But on the left (night side) in the absence of sunlight, the lantern-like glow of infrared radiation from the planet's warm interior silhouettes features at Saturn's deeper cloud levels.

NASA-APOD

if anyone happen to know about an animation, please contact barnabu immediately!
his related Jupiter - Cassini Movie Overlay

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado

While the Cassini spacecraft was orbiting Saturn, it spotted a star blinking out behind the planet's F ring. The star occultation indicated that a solid moonlet might be present, which was nicknamed "Mittens" by researchers. This artist's conception shows how "Mittens" (the object to the right of the star) may appear to Cassini.

Observing the flickering of starlight passing through Saturn's rings, researchers discovered 13 objects in the F ring ranging in size from 30 yards to six miles (27 meters to 10 kilometers) in length. Since most of the objects were translucent, with some starlight passing through them, the researchers concluded they probably are temporary clumps of icy boulders that are continually shattering and reforming.

Cat names like "Mittens" and "Fluffy" were chosen for these moonlets, because they appear to unexpectedly appear and disappear, and have multiple lives.

Cassini became the first spacecraft to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit, when it entered planetary orbit on Jun. 30, 2004. It immediately began sending back intriguing images and data. The European Space Agency's Huygens Probe plunged down into the dense atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan, in January 2005. Instruments on both spacecraft are providing vital data and the best views ever of this region of our solar system.
space.com IoD

An unblinking eye stares from this crater image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This is one of many Martian craters sitting in the northern lowlands area of Nilosyrtis, a region that marks the transition from the southern highlands on the Red Planet. Each crater center contains heavily eroded mounds of material that probably once buried craters in the region.

Closer inspection reveals scattered rocks that may have accumulated from distant impacts on the planet's surface. This marks a passage of time suggesting that the mounds are ancient sediments, perhaps once deposited in a primordial sea when water ran on Mars. The radial filaments or "eyelashes" probably come from more recent deposits of dust and sand trapped between the older mounds and crater walls.

� NASA/JPL/University of Arizona and SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

space. com IoD

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This stunning, enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos last month. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth's gravity, streaks suggest loose material has slid down inside the crater walls over time. Light bluish regions near the crater's rim could indicate a relatively freshly exposed surface. The origin of the curious grooves along the surface is mysterious but may be related to the crater-forming impact.

nasa-apod