Emily has posted her picks for the Year in Pictures; being a solar system kinda person she doesn’t have nebulae, galaxies, or things like that. Still (I suppose) the images are quite pretty and cool, and worth a perusal. The one of Phobos is particularly awesome.
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December 26th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Great pictures. Particularly awesome picture of Saturn. On the bigger version of the pic, there are two faint objects in or near the outermost ring. One is just above the rings on the far left, slightly above the 9 o’clock position. The other is a little bit outside the rings on the far right, three o’clock dead on. They weren’t named in the article, probably because they’re hardly visible. Are they minor moons?
December 26th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Earthset from kayuga… too cool! I can see my house from there!
December 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Yes, the Phobos image is awesome — and puzzling. I’ve always assumed that the long axis of Phobos would point towards Mars, due to tidal effects (that close to the planet, the tide is nearly strong enough to tear it apart). But in the picture, we see the long axis parallel to the surface. What explains this? I presume Phobos is tidally locked; why the odd orientation?
December 27th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
The Wikipedia article confirms that Phobos is in synchronous rotation, but it doesn’t address the orientation question. It has a Really Cool short animation of a transit of Phobos across the Sun, as seen by the Opportunity rover.