Comments on: Yet again even more astronomy pictures of 2007

By: Keith Thompson

Keith Thompson — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:40:27 +0000

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.

By: Keith Thompson

Keith Thompson — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:34:04 +0000

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?

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 02:51:26 +0000

Earthset from kayuga… too cool! I can see my house from there!

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:17:22 +0000

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?