NASA’s Titan Mare Explorer
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., is managing a project to explore the organic seas of Saturn’s moon Titan, one of three proposals selected by NASA this week as candidates for the agency’s next Discovery Program mission.
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Sunrise with Venus and Jupiter
These two celestial beacons shining brightly in the east before sunrise are actually children of the Sun, the planets Venus and Jupiter. Photograph Babak Tafreshi
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Antikythera mechanism was also sun tracker
Antikythera mechanism the oldest astronomical calculator, famous for having intricate gear systems centuries ahead of their time. Now new work shows the Antikythera mechanism used pure geometry, as well as flashy gears to track celestial bodies’ motion through the heavens.
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Valles Marineris: the Grand Canyon of Mars
This is the largest canyon in the Solar System and cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep.
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Stars and Planets
With planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have discovered 1,235 candidate planets orbiting other suns since the Kepler mission’s search for Earth-like worlds began in 2009.
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Sunset with Mercury and Jupiter
When warm sunset hues begin to fade, two celestial beacons now shine in the evening twilight, Mercury and Jupiter.
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Chasma Boreale, Mars
Chasma Boreale, a long, flat-floored valley, cuts deep into Mars’ north polar icecap. Its walls rise about 4,600 feet, or 1,400 meters, above the floor. Where the edge of the ice cap has retreated, sheets of sand are emerging that accumulated during earlier ice-free climatic cycles.
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Saturn’s largest moon, Titan
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is seen in the centre of this image. Titan is 5,150 kilometres, or 3,200 miles, across. The smaller moon Enceladus (504 kilometres or 313 miles across) is on the far right, appearing just below the rings.
Picture: NASA
Earth is worth $4,800 trillion
A scientist has created a formula to calculate the worth of planet Earth and has valued it at three thousand trillion pounds.
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How far away is the Moon?
If the Earth were the size of a basketball and the moon a tennis ball, how far apart would they be? Diagrams that are not to scale make us think that they’re closer than they really are.
