Awesome space pics

[steve25805 126,021]

I have an interest in the cosmos and always have, so thought I'd start an off-topic thread to share some awesome space pics, starting with some of the latest ones of Pluto taken recently by the New Horizons probe...

Here is a pic that shows the size of Pluto and it's smaller moon, Charon, in comparison with the Earth...

Another, perhaps slightly clearer, size comparison....

Here is it's moon, Charon....

Some interesting facts. Pluto is 39 times further from the Sun than we are, and it is so coldd that even nitrogen - which makes up 79% of our own atmosphere - is frozen solid as an ice.

From Pluto, the Sun is so far away that it just looks like a very bright star. But it is still 1500 times brighter than our full moon, and would provide similar levels of light to what we see on Earth several minutes after sunset - enough to read a newspaper with.

It is so far away that it took the New Horizons probe ten years to get there.

[steve25805 126,021]

No set of awesome space pics would be complete without at least one of Saturn and it's rings. But this one also clearly shows aurorae around the planet's polar region, similar to the northern and southern lights in our own atmosphere and caused by electrons being captured by the planet's magnetic field. The aurorae on Saturn are of course much vaster than ours....

This is a picture of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. 1300 planet Earths could fit inside it.....

Here is a size comparison between Jupiter and the Eath....

Here is a close up view of Jupiter's largest and most well known storm system - the Great Red Spot...

Here is a picture of one of Jupiter's moons, Io, the most volcanically active world in the solar system. There are frequent geysers and eruptions, spewing sulphur rather than lava high above the moon's surface. At the top of this pic, a volcanic plume can be spotted actively erupting......

[steve25805 126,021]

Here is one of the best pics we have of distant planet Neptune.......

This is Mars, with it's vast canyon - Valles Marineris - clearly obvious. If this vast canyon were placed on Earth it would dwarf the Grand Canyon and would stretch most of the way from New York to California....

This awesome pic was taken from the surface of Mars.....

This is a size comparison between Earth and Mars.....

This is Venus. It is almost the same size as the Earth, being just slightly smaller, but is substantially nearer to the Sun than us and has suffered a runaway greenhouse effect which has turned it into a hell hole. It has a thick, mostly carbon dioxide, atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure at the surface is 100 times greater than on Earth, whilst the temperature typically exceeds 470 Celcius. It is hot enough to melt lead. It's surface is not visible due to dense sulphuric cloud layers covering the entire planet......

[steve25805 126,021]

Here are some stunningly beautiful nebulae. These are vast clouds of mostly hydrogen and helium gas in space, with some heavier elements mixed in, where new stars are being formed....

[steve25805 126,021]

This is a close up of an actual comet upon which a space probe was successfully landed. This was taken when the comet was still far enough from the Sun for it's various frozen gasses not to have started being outgassed yet, which is what typically causes it's long tail....

And this is the actual size of the comet compared to Los Angeles....

Here is a spiral galaxy. Our own Milky Way is thought to be similar to this.......

Earthrise, seen from the surface of the Moon.....

Our home. Africa and Arabia are clearly visible. Also, Madagascar off the African coast, and ice-covered Antarctica in the south polar region......

[steve25805 126,021]

This pic was taken on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. A lake is clearly visible. But the temperature here is excruciatingly cold, typically below -170 Celcius. Much of the terrain is actually water ice frozen as solid as rock, whilst the lake is actually liquid methane......

Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, mostly nitrogen. It is also the second largest moon in the solar system. Only Jupiter's icy Ganymede is bigger. This is how Titan compares in size with both the Earth and Mars......

This is Neptune's moon Triton, with Neptune itself in view. It is another geologically active moon, but it is so far away from the Sun that the geysers here are mostly frozen nitrogen heating enough to turn itto a gas which then erupts explosively from the surface....

[steve25805 126,021]

This is Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest Volcano in the solar system, albeit long extinct......

This is a size comparison featuring the largest moon in our solar system - Ganymede (bottom left) - compared to our own Moon, and to the Earth.....

[steve25805 126,021]

The Sun......

This is Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. From here the Sun would look about two and a half times as large as it does from Earth......

This is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, caused by electrons trapped in the Earth's magnetic field......

[steve25805 126,021]

Here are some planetary nebulae. They are so-called because they can resemble planetary discs in telescopes, but they are actually not planets at all. They are stars that were once similar to the Sun which approached the final stages of their lives, swelling up into red giant stars, before puffing off their outer layers into space, whilst their cores shrink to become white dwarf stars. This will happen to the Sun about five billion years from now. As their outer gasses expand into space they produce beautiful spectacles like this......

[steve25805 126,021]

Two spiral galaxies, filmed by the Hubble Space Telescope......

A cloud of molecular hydrogen in space.......

A comet as seen from the surface of Mars......

[steve25805 126,021]

So interesting as well as amazing at the size of Pluto. That of how it reminds me of the first few pictures from Apollo 8 . Which circled the mon . Before coming back to Earth once more in that mission that they were on then.

How very clearly the Earth had stood out . In those first few pictures that were shown back here on Earth. How amazing it all looked from that perspective in space at that time . That it's important to all of us here on Earth to explore space and not allow it to be de - funded at all . As it will provide us all with the answers we all seek . In understanding who we are and why we are here as a people . That should all be together as a whole in continuing on with space exploration .

I really enjoy viewing these pictures here . That are all great to look at and to admire them for what they are. So please, keep on posting on this interesting thread you now have started .

Kevin

I agree. In the future, relatively nearby space in our solar system could be of huge advantage economically.

In the asteroid belt there are numerous asteroids many miles across that are almost pure nickel and iron. Just one of these, if we could collect it and bring it here, would provide us with vast amounts of these metals.

And some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn contain vast quantities of frozen water. Some of them are about three quarters ice. Others contain large amounts of liquid methane. The moon Io has a surface that is almost entirely sulphur. And the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn contain vast amounts of hydrogen and helium.

Our own solar system is actually very resource rich.

[steve25805 126,021]

This planetary nebula is commonly known as the Cosmic Eye for obvious reasons. It really does look like a human eye......

This is a total eclipse of the Sun. Prominences - eruptions of gas from the surface of the Sun - can be seen around the edge of the Moon......

The Andromeda Galaxy, a sister galaxy of our own Milky Way.....

[steve25805 126,021]

This is a supernova remnant - a giant star that blew itself apart in a massive explosion....

[likesToLick 10,216]

This planetary nebula is commonly known as the Cosmic Eye for obvious reasons. It really does look like a human eye......

Excellent thread Steve. Thanks for posting.

[steve25805 126,021]

Here are some pics taken from the actual surface of Mars......

The Sun in the Martian sky.......

[steve25805 126,021]

This is a picture taken on the actual surface of Venus by a Russian probe. The atmospheric pressure here is 100 times greater than on Earth, and the temperature can exceed 470 Celcius. The probe that took this survived for only a matter of minutes.......

This is a size comparison of the Earth and it's Moon....

This is a size comparison between Saturn - second largest planet in the solar system - and the Earth......

Although much less extensive than Saturn's, Uranus also has a system of rings around it, as captured in this pic taken by the Voyager 2 probe......

Although Uranus is the smallest of the four gas giant planets - the others being Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune - it is still a lot larger than the Earth, as this size comparison demonstrates......

[steve25805 126,021]

It is interesting to note that at some point in the distant future, life is going to have to leave the Earth if it is going to survive. That includes us - or whatever we have evolved into by then.

The Sun supplies it's vast energy by a process of nuclear fusion in it's core, by which hydrogen is converted into helium, releasing vast amounts of energy in the process. But as more of the hydrogen in the core is turned into helium, for complex reasons the Sun burns hotter. So gradually the Sun is getting hotter over time. Eventually, as the supplies of hydrogen in the core become exhausted some 5 billion years from now, the Sun will start to convert helium into carbon for a time, but this results in the star expanding into a red giant, vastly bigger than it is now. Eventually, it's outer layers of gasses will be puffed off into space to form a planetary nebula, whilst the core ceases nuclear fusion entirely and shrinks into becoming a white dwarf, slowly cooling over time.

What this means for us and our planet is concerning. Because when our sun expands into a red giant, it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and the Earth inside it! And our planet will be vapourised! Long before that, though, we'd have had to have left the Earth. As the Sun gradually gets hotter, by about 1 to 2 billion years from now it will be beginning to boil away the oceans which will set in train a runaway greenhouse effect that will turn the Earth into another hell hole like Venus. It will become utterly uninhabitable to us long before the Sun expands into a red giant and destroys it.

But as the Earth grows too hot, other bodies further from the Sun like Titan - currently way too cold for us - will be heated to the point where they will have temperatures we could live with. Mars might serve as a liferaft for a time, then Titan, perhaps ultimately even distant Pluto.

Eventually, though, when all that is left is a small white dwarf about the size of the Earth, gradually cooling to eventually give out no heat at all, we will have to leave what is left of our solar system altogether, and find a new home on another planet orbiting another star.

[steve25805 126,021]

Saturn's moon, Mimas. The large impact crater is so large that whatever caused it must have come very close to shattering the moon apart........

This pic of Jupiter also has two of it's moons in view - Ganymede and, further back, Io.......

A view of Jupiter's moon, Io...

Storm systems in Jupiter's atmosphere....

[steve25805 126,021]

A view of the Earth, seen from the International Space Station......

[steve25805 126,021]

Thought I'd bump this thread with some awesome size comparisons.

This is the size of our Sun compared to our Earth. Even this typical eruption of gas from it's surface is many times the size of our planet. This makes the Sun pretty massive, huh....?

And yet, there are other stars out there far more massive than our Sun. This is the size of our Sun compared to the giant star Antares........

[steve25805 126,021]

A scene from the surface of Mars....

Mars from close orbit.....

[steve25805 126,021]

Pluto.....

It is worth bearing in mind what an incredible feat it was to send a probe out there successfully to send pics like this back. The distances involved are enormous.

The Earth itself is some 93 million miles from the Sun. This distance is also referred to as 1 AU, which is 1 Astronomical Unit. It takes light itself - travelling at the enormous speed of 186,000 miles per second - about 8 or 9 minutes to reach us from the Sun.

Now consider Pluto. It's greatest distance from the Sun - the distance varies quite a lot due to it's highly elliptical orbit - is close to 4.5 billion miles, 49 AU. This means that it is 49 times further away than we are. Light itself takes over four and a half hours to cover that distance.

The New Horizons probe which we sent there to take this and other pics travelled at the tremendous speed for any man-made vehicle of 10 miles per second, or some 36,000 miles per hour. Yet it still took it ten years to get there. And it nevertheless travelled that vast distance with sufficient accuracy to get close enough to take pictures such as this.

This is a stunning technological achievement.