The Pithy Amateur Astronomer

These images of Venus were taken by the Cassini spacecraft. It's pictures like this from the outer solar system that makes me feel alone. Bonus points if you can tell me what the title of this post references to (there are 2 answers here).

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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/100450/stunning-views-of-venus-all-the-way-from-saturn/


Two amazing images from the Cassini spacecraft today: We know how brightly Venus shines in our own night sky; now here’s visual proof it shines brightly even in the skies above Saturn. In one image it shines so brightly that it is even visible looking through Saturn’s rings! But in this absolutely stunning shot, above, Venus appears as a morning star, just off the edge of the planet. From Cassini, you’re looking directly above the edge of Saturn’s G ring to see the white dot, which is Venus. Lower down, Saturn’s E ring makes an appearance, looking blue thanks to the scattering properties of the dust that comprises the ring. (A bright spot near the E ring is a distant star, the Cassini CICLOPS team says.)

This beautiful image was taken on January 4, 2013.

On average, Venus and Saturn are about 1,321,200,000 km (820,955,619 mi or 8.83 astronomical units) apart, so that’s a nice, long distance shot! Venus is brighter in Saturn’s skies than Earth is, however, because Venus is covered in thick sulfuric acid clouds, making it very bright.
And here’s the other great shot, showing Saturn and its rings in true color:







Venus is the white dot, just above and to the right of the image center. Again, its amazing that it shines through the rings.

This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 17 degrees below the ring plane, and was taken in visible light (and it is a true-color image) with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Nov. 10, 2012.

In an email about these images, Cassini imaging team lead Carolyn Porco said that even though Venus reaches nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius) and has a surface pressure 100 times that of Earth’s, Venus is considered a twin of our planet because of their similar sizes, masses, rocky compositions and close orbits.

And so, she pointed out, “Think about Venus the next time you find yourself reveling in the thriving flora, balmy breezes, and temperate climate of a lovely day on Earth, and remember: you could be somewhere else!”

See more about these images at the CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations) website.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121205.html

Explanation: Why does this galaxy emit such spectacular jets? No one is sure, but it is likely related to an active supermassive black hole at its center. The galaxy at the image center, Hercules A, appears to be a relatively normal elliptical galaxy in visible light. When imaged in radio waves, however, tremendous plasma jets over one million light years long appear. Detailed analyses indicate that the central galaxy, also known as 3C 348, is actually over 1,000 times more massive than our Milky Way Galaxy, and the central black hole is nearly 1,000 times more massive than the black hole at our Milky Way's center. Pictured above is a visible light image obtained by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope superposed with a radio image taken by the recently upgraded Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in New Mexico, USA. The physics that creates the jets remains a topic of research with a likely energy source being infalling matter swirling toward the central black hole.

I am a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson and his ability to bring the field of astronomy to the masses. He has a radio show/podcast located at http://www.startalkradio.net/ and it is definitely worth a listen to. I have subscribed to it and I am currently listening to older episodes to catch up to the latest episode. So far, they are all a joy to listen to and I am sure all the episodes will be equally as great.

Found this on the interwebs and thought I would re-post it. It's an amazing picture of Europa, Jupiter, and the Great Red Spot. I wonder how Jupiter would appear from Europa. I do not know where I found the image at but if I do or you know, I will be glad to cite it.

It's not every day that you get to see a crescent Sun. This was caused by the partial eclipse that happened a few days ago.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120522.html

This is a good picture of an eclipse. These types of pictures make me realize how big the moon is but the Sun is even bigger.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120520.html

Explanation: What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! In early 2009, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In particular the above image, taken from the Mall of Asia seawall, caught a partially eclipsed Sun setting over Manila Bay in the Philippines. Piers are visible in silhouette in the foreground. Eclipse chasers and well placed sky enthusiasts captured many other interesting and artistic images of the year's only annular solar eclipse, including movies, eclipse shadow arrays, and rings of fire. Today parts of the Sun again will become briefly blocked by the Moon, again visible to some as a partial eclipse of a setting Sun. A small swath of Earth, however, will be exposed to the unusual ring of fire effect when the Moon is completely surrounded by the glowing light of the slightly larger Sun.

Russian Satellite Elektro-L took this picture of Earth. The detail is stunning and the color looks like an artist added it (even though it wasn't). Below is the post from Universe Today where I found the picture.

When some people look at clouds, they interpret the shapes and make comparisons to other objects. I do the same but instead of clouds I look at astronomical bodies.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110922.html


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream


Explanation: Linking spiral arms, two large colliding galaxies are featured in this remarkable cosmic portrait constructed using image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive. Recorded in astronomer Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 272, the pair is otherwise known as NGC 6050 near center, and IC 1179 at upper right. A third galaxy, likely also a member of the interacting system, can be spotted above and left of larger spiral NGC 6050. They lie some 450 million light-years away in the Hercules Galaxy Cluster. At that estimated distance, the picture spans over 150 thousand light-years. Although this scenario does look peculiar, galaxy collisions and their eventual mergers are now understood to be common, with Arp 272 representing a stage in this inevitable process. In fact, the nearby large spiral Andromeda Galaxy is known to be approaching our own galaxy and Arp 272 may offer a glimpse of the far future collision between Andromeda and the Milky Way.

This image reminds me of some serious confetti.

Abell 2744: Pandora's Cluster of Galaxies 
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Merten (ITA, AOB), & D. Coe (STScI)
Explanation: Why is this cluster of galaxies so jumbled? Far from a smooth distribution, Abell 2744 not only has knots of galaxies, but the X-ray emitting hot gas (colored red) in the cluster appears distributed differently than the dark matter. The dark matter, taking up over 75 percent of the cluster mass and colored blue in the above image, was inferred by that needed to create the distortion of background galaxies by gravitational lensing. The jumble appears to result from the slow motion collision of at least four smaller galaxy clusters over the past few billion years. The above picture combinesoptical images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope with X-ray images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Abell 2744, dubbed Pandora's cluster, spans over two million light years and can best be seen with a really large telescope toward the constellation of the Sculptor.