Stunning space images - a brief gallery

JupiterKid

Some stunning images from the past 40 years of solar system exploration. Enjoy!

Majestic Saturn as seen by the Cassini orbiter mission.



The psychedelic atmosphere of mighty Jupiter as seen by the Juno orbiter



The mountains of Mars as seen by the Curiosity rover



More Mars scenery...



The intensely volcanic moon, Io, of Jupiter



The small icy but intensely geologically active moon of Saturn, Enceladus



The beautiful deep blue outermost planet, Neptune

Kermit.de.frog

FAKE NEWS

Earth created 3,000 years a go.

Get out of here with your nonsense.

JupiterKid

Since the beginning of the space age, humankind has sent spacecraft to explore every single planet in our solar system. We have five craft including the two famous Voyagers (launched in 1977 and still operational) that have now left our solar system and which will travel through interstellar space amongst the stars of our Milky Way galaxy for countless millennia

We have orbited Mercury, Venus, Mars (currently 5 operational orbiting spacecraft), Jupiter and Saturn. We have successfully landed on Venus, Mars (the last successful landing only a few weeks back), a moon of Saturn, a couple of asteroids and even a comet! The Galileo mission to explore Jupiter sent a probe deep into the atmosphere of that giant planet.

And of course we have ourselves walked on the Moon. And in the next 20 years hopefully there will be human bootprints on Mars.

And the majestic beauty of our solar system which as yet shows no indication of any life beyond the Earth should make us cherish the incredible biodiversity of our home planet all the more. The exploration of space has put our own Earth into its proper context and given us insights into its uniqueness.

Us humans have an innate urge to explore. And there is still so much more to do. We have merely made the first baby steps off the Earth.:)

NIMAN

Some great images, but aren't some of them heavily altered and tweaked?

I find the simple ones of the surface if Mars nicer than the 1St couple, cos they are real, that's what it actually looks like on Mars.

Whereas the 1st couple look like artists impressions.

Fart

NIMAN wrote: »

Some great images, but aren't some of them heavily altered and tweaked?

I find the simple ones of the surface if Mars nicer than the 1St couple, cos they are real, that's what it actually looks like on Mars.

Whereas the 1st couple look like artists impressions.

It's still real to me, damn it!

JupiterKid

More beautiful solar system images taken by spacecraft to enjoy...


Jupiter and Io, as seen by the Cassini mission in a 2001 flyby en route to Saturn




The beautiful ringed planet Saturn and a couple of its icy moons




Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest volcano (probably now extinct but still possibly dormant) in the Solar System




The Endeavour crater rim on Mars as seen by the recently defunct Opportunity rover that travelled an amazing 29km from its landing site.




The surface of the Saturnian moon Titan, as seen by the Huygens lander. This is the farthest man made object on the surface of another solar system body, over 1 billion km from Earth. Amazing!




Venus surface unveiled by radar mapping orbiter Magellan (its atmosphere is incredibly opaque and dense)

fonecrusher1

Blasphemy!!!


Damn your .... science.

orourkeda1977

Have a **** and a few pints.

JupiterKid

Dwarf planet Pluto taken by the New Horizons mission. Pluto is over 4 billion km from Earth...




Ligeria Mare on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and the only moon to have a dense atmosphere. This is a sea of liquid methane, Titan has rivers and lakes of methane and ethane. Radar image from the Cassini mission.




Our own beautiful Earth, teeming with life, as seen from its utterly desolate Moon

namloc1980

Bizarre looking surface of Hyperion, a moon of Saturn as seen by Cassini




Large vertical structures can be seen here in the rings of Saturn casting shadows across the rings.




These plumes on Saturn's moon Enceladus are made of water with trace amounts of other chemicals indicating the there is a water-ice ocean below the surface.




Terrain on Jupiter's moon Europa that looks exactly like icebergs in a frozen ocean and that's what it is. The cracked surface probably caused be an impact event. Below the surface Europa has a vast liquid water ocean, possibly containing more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

McMurphy

Cork Boy 53

Obviously not in the Solar System but I think this image is worthy of inclusion here.

Eagle Nebula - Pillars of Creation

JupiterKid

Beautiful Saturn - apparently its rings as we see them now only formed less than 100 million years ago and will be gone in around 100 million years in the future. Thus us humans are remarkably fortunate to be around when they are at their most majestic.




The Great Dark Spot on Neptune, discovered by the Voyager 2 probe as it flew by in 1989.




The chaotic small inner moon of Uranus, Miranda, which seems to have been formed by committee. Theories suggest the moon was broken up after a giant impact and then reassembled...



The North Pole of Mars. Like Earth, Mars has polar ice caps, of both water and carbon dioxide ice.



Layered rock stratification at Gale crater, Mars, as seen by the Curiosity rover

Duckworth_Luas

Raheem Euro

namloc1980 wrote: »

Bizarre looking surface of Hyperion, a moon of Saturn as seen by Cassini

That's your ma's face that is.

JupiterKid

The Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, the most distant object in our solar system encountered by a spacecraft, as seen by New Horizons, which like the Voyagers, is leaving our solar system permanently...




Meanwhile, China has landed a rover on the far side of the Moon. The first landing on the far side. What a feat!