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Bad Astronomy
« Mesmerizing visualization of a geomagnetic storm
One guy fooling around with the Moon »

Top 14 Solar System Pictures of 2011

<div style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 8px;">A few days ago I posted <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/06/top-16-pictures-from-space/" target="_blank">my favorite space pictures from 2011</a>, and said it was only Part 1. As promised, here is Part 2: my favorite pictures of solar system objects from the past year. <br /><br />Again, it was ridiculously hard to pick just a few. I had something like 70 to choose from. Our space probes keep sending back amazing shots of planets, moons, asteroids, and more, and we keep getting better at taking pictures of them from the ground as well. As an astronomer, I love it, but as a blogger it makes my fingers cramp. <br /><br />Still, it's not a terrible burden to bear. All of the pictures I chose are interesting for their beauty, their science, and their story.  <br /><br />To browse, just click the arrows or the next image in the filmstrip. Clicking the image will take you to my original blog post about it, with more information. <br /><br />... and there's still one more gallery to go! I've done space and now solar system, and that only leaves the rest of the Universe. So stay tuned, there's a whole cosmos coming your way in a few days.<br /><br /><strong>Related Posts:</strong><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/06/top-16-pictures-from-space/" target="_blank">Top 16 Space Pictures of 2011</a><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/20/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2010-runners-up/" target="_blank"><br />Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2010 - Runners Up<br /><br /></a><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/14/the-top-14-astronomy-pictures-of-2010/" target="_blank">The Top 14 Astronomy Pictures of 2010</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/15/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2009/" target="_blank">Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2009<br /><br /></a><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/12/17/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2008/" target="_blank">Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2008</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/12/23/top-10-astronomy-pictures-of-2007-runners-up/" target="_blank">Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007 - Runners Up</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/12/13/top-ten-astronomy-pictures-of-2007/" target="_blank">Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2006/12/27/the-top-ten-astronomy-images-of-2006/" target="_blank">Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2006</a></div>The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the Moon since 2009, taking thousands of images in amazing resolution unseen since Apollo. Many of these pictures have been simply astonishing, including the one above taken in March 2011: an unnamed crater a few kilometers across (the image is 2.2 km or about 1.4 miles wide). Whatever smacked into the Moon all those eons ago blew out a lot of dust and other material that fell back to the surface, spreading out like the broad petals of a flower. In the crater floor you can barely see some boulders and other debris that must have gone straight up and back down after the impact. The Moon has no air, but formations like this erode after time anyway: countless meteorite impacts, the solar wind, and even thermal flexing during the Moon's day/night cycle take their toll. So we know that such craters must be young, but that's a relative term: this impact may have occurred when dinosaurs still walked the Earth.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University</em><br /><br /><a href="http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/380-Action-Shot.html" target="_blank">Oriignal image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/11/a-flower-bloom-on-the-moon/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><br />Solar eclipses are relatively rare events on the Earth's surface. The Moon's orbit around the Earth is tilted a bit with respect to the Earth's orbit around the Sun, so the Moon has to be at the right place at the right time to block the Sun. <br /><br />But what if you're in orbit around the Earth? In that case, <em>the Earth itself</em> blocks the Sun all the time (of course, if you want to be pedantic, it happens to us on the surface every time the Sun sets). NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory stares at the Sun 24/7/365, and was placed in an orbit to minimize the amount of time the Earth blocks its view. But it does happen twice a year, when the orbits all align.<br /><br /> The picture above is from late March 2011, during one of these eclipse seasons. The edge of the Earth cut right across the disk of the Sun, creating this odd view. This particular shot is in the ultraviolet, where Earth's atmosphere is almost opaque, completely cutting off the Sun's light... except for that one little curlicue on the left. That's an extremely bright filament of material, luminous enough to have some of its light get through, despite our atmosphere.<br /><br />This is a weird and wonderful picture, accessible only from space, which is why I picked it for this year's list.<br /><br /> <em>Image credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5576582865/sizes/l/" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/01/when-the-earth-takes-a-bite-out-of-the-sun/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><div>When I was a kid (mumble mumble) years ago, asteroids were just points of light in even the biggest telescopes. That was true even just a few years ago, but in recent times we've seen quite  a few close up thanks to the space program. Vesta is the second largest asteroid, orbiting the Sun in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. And despite its size (roughly 500 km or 300 miles across), until a few months ago we really didn't know much about it.</div> <div><br />But then in July 2011, the spacecraft Dawn arrived. Orbiting the rock, it's been snapping away, revolutionizing our understanding of asteroids. Vesta's landscape is diverse, with <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/16/vestas-double-whammy/" target="_blank">craters</a>, cliffs, mountains, and long, linear grooves (although, interestingly, no hints of vulcanism, when some were expected). Its south pole is an enormous impact basin; something <em>huge</em> hit Vesta <em>hard</em> a long time ago. Ejected material from that impact scattered across the solar system, and some of it has hit Earth as meteorites. We've found some of these, and<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/18/invaders-from-vesta/" target="_blank"> through chemical analysis shown they are from Vesta</a>, which is truly amazing when you think about it. It took a lot of effort to get a spacecraft to the asteroid, and all that time we had pieces of it here already!</div> <div><br />But that's OK. There's still plenty left to learn. And eventually Dawn will leave Vesta and head over to Ceres, the largest asteroid in the solar system. What will it find when it gets there?<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/576312main_pia14317-full_full.jpg" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/01/vesta-in-breathtaking-detail/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><br /><br /></div><div>I really like pictures of Earth from space, but this is one only a mother could love. It's not actually a picture, but a map of Earth's gravity! It's a model created using data from the European Space Agency's orbiting GOCE satellite, which was used to very carefully map out the changing strength of Earth's gravity over our planet's surface. Essentially, this map tells you the direction of "down" over every point on the Earth. If you stand near a mountain, for example, then the gravity of that mountain pulls on you a little bit, and the direction you feel gravity pulling you changes a wee bit.</div> <div>This kind of map - called a geoid - is a standard reference used by topographic maps, and also helps scientists understand how ocean currents flow, how ocean water circulates, and even better understand the dynamics of sea wave heights. It may make the Earth look lumpy and distorted and weird, but hey - nature calls 'em like it sees 'em.<br /><br />[Bonus: Nathanial Burton-Bradford took several  of these images <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/21/the-lumpy-3d-earth/" target="_blank">and created red/green 3D images of them</a>!]</div> <div><br />Image credit: ESA/HPF/DLR<br /><br /><a href="http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1AK6UPLG_index_0.html" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/31/the-earths-lumpy-gravity/">Original blog post<br /> </a></div><div>This may look like a picture of the Moon taken through a small backyard telescope, but it's anything but: it's a huge mosaic of <em>1300 images</em> from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, painstakingly stitched together to make a huge high-res map of the Moon.<a href="http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/lroc_wac_nearside_noslew.png" target="_blank"> The bigger version</a> gives you a taste of what's in it (<a href="http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/lroc_wac_nearside_noslew_anot.png" target="_blank">a labeled one</a> is available as well) but even that pales in comparison to the massive 24,000 x 24,000 pixel <a href="http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/data/pr/tiff/wac_nearside.tif" target="_blank">full size version</a>, weighing in at an astonishing 550 megabytes, in case you needed to wallpaper your living room. If you prefer to interact a bit, then there's <a href="http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/wac_nearside" target="_blank">a pan-and-scan version</a> where you can zoom in and have fun flying over the lunar surface.</div> <div><br />It's more than just fun: one big reason LRO is doing this is to make high-res maps of the Moon for future exploration. It is one of my most fervent hopes that one day, maps like this will be used by people who are trying to find their way from their dome to their in-laws' for dinner.<br /><br />And if you live on the Moon's far side, no worries: <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/12/the-extraordinary-back-of-the-moon/" target="_blank">there's a map for that half</a>, too!<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University</em><br /><br /><a href="http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/wac_nearside" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/22/the-extraordinary-face-of-the-moon/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><br /><br /></div>We might like to think of the Sun as a steady, calm source of light and heat, but in reality it undergoes a cycle of violent activity driven by magnetic fields. This cycle peaks every 11 years or so, and we're due for the next maximum in 2013 or 2014. The previous minimum lasted an unusually long time, but things started ramping up again in 2011. Sunspots marring the Sun's face <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/27/for-your-viewing-pleasure-active-region-1302/" target="_blank">started appearing in greater numbers</a>, and many of them were the source of incredible outbursts of energy called solar flares.<br /><br /> This picture shows a flare from August 2011, as seen in the ultraviolet by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. When the subatomic particles spurted out by such flares interact with our own magnetic field, the result can be spectacular aurorae, which are also becoming a common sight. They can also cause blackouts (as a particularly large event did to Quebec in March 1989) and damage our satellites - including GPS and communication satellites. Studying the Sun is more than just science: our economy can literally depend on it.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/SDO/AIA</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6025628821/in/photostream" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/09/another-big-solar-flare/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><div>Mars appears to be dead now, but a long time ago it was an active planet. Volcanoes roared, sending floods of lava across the plains of the planet. Sometimes those flows would solidify on top, forming a hollow tube through which the lava moved. Eventually, when the volcano died away, what was left was a hollow underground corridor, called a lava tube.</div> <div>Sometimes, points along that tube will collapse, forming a hole in the ground above. Called <em>skylights</em>, we see these on Earth near volcanoes, but they're on Mars too! What you're seeing here is just such a skylight. Under this otherwise fairly featureless plain is a lava tube, and something - perhaps a meteorite - punched a hole in it. Sand flowed down, forming the collapse pit, which is about 175 meters (600 feet) across. The hole itself is 35 meters (115 feet) across, the size of a decent back yard. You can even see the rim of the hole casting a shadow on the lava tube floor, 20 meters (60 feet) down!<br /><br />Skylights on Mars are pretty cool, but they may eventually be useful. The lava tubes are big enough to support a decent size exploration base, and the ground above would protect astronauts from solar radiation. What you're looking at here might very well one day be called "home" by your descendents!<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona</em><br /><br /><a href="http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/wallpaper/2560/ESP_023531_1840.jpg" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/18/spectacular-sand-pit-found-on-mars/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a></div><div>Since Pluto's demotion from the brotherhood of planets a few years back, Neptune has taken on the mantle of responsibility of most distant planet in the solar system. It's big, about 4 times the diameter of Earth, but so far away - 4.4 billion kilometers (2.7 billion miles) away at its closest - that even in big telescopes it's hard to see detail. Astronomer Mike Brown used one of the biggest telescopes on Earth, the monster 10-meter Keck eye in Hawaii, to observe Neptune in September 2011, getting this lovely infrared picture of it. The bright bands around Neptune are high-altitude clouds, similar to the cloud patterns we see on Jupiter and Saturn.</div> <div><br />And oh, did I say he was observing Neptune? Actually, Mike studies the giant frozen iceballs that orbit the Sun out past Neptune, so really he was more interested in Neptune's moon Triton, seen to the lower right in that picture. Triton is so similar to those other objects that it may actually have once been one, captured eons ago by Neptune's gravity. It's unclear how something like that could've happened, so observations of these distant denizens of the outer solar system are important for us to understand the history and evolution of our local neighborhood.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: Mike Brown</em><br /><br /><a href="http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/out/triton.png" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/19/neptune-is-really-far-away/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a></div>The MESSENGER spacecraft was launched in 2004 and spent <em>seven years</em> getting to Mercury; it's not all that easy dropping a probe down into the inner solar system. It swung by Mercury twice (not to mention the Earth once and Venus twice!) before finally settling into orbit in March 2011, and then beginning its scientific mission of analyzing the overheated world. Among the first pictures it took was this one, showing the crater named <a href="denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:denied:link to:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/30/clair-de-mercury/" target="_blank">Debussy</a> (after the composer). The crater is 80 km (50 miles) wide, but reaching much farther are those streaks called <em>rays</em>; collapsed plumes of ejected material when whatever hit Mercury hit Mercury. Many craters on the Moon show rays, and in some cases pictures of the two objects look very similar.<br /><br /> Since March, MESSENGER has taken huge amounts of data of the planet, increasing our knowledge of what makes it tick - and it's returned not just images but also laser altimetry data, spectroscopy, and mineralogical maps. Mercury isn't much like Earth at all, but sometimes it's the contrasts that aid our understanding. The planets in the solar system are a diverse lot, and it's only by studying all of them that we can come to understand the one we live on.<br /><br /> <em>Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington</em><br /><br /><a href="http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&amp;image_id=432" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/29/messengers-first-picture-from-mercury-orbit/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><div>In late 2010, an amateur astronomer noticed an odd white spot in Saturn's northern hemisphere. It was a storm, like a gigantic hurricane, which quickly grew in size to thousands of kilometers across and rapidly surpassed the diameter of our own planet. And yet it continued to grow, and in February 2011 the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn took this incredible picture showing the storm had grown so long <em>it had literally wrapped its way around the entire planet!</em> At this point, it was a staggering 300,000 km (180,000 miles) in length - <strong>the same distance as 3/4 of the way from the Earth to the Moon!<br /> </strong></div> <div><br />Pictures taken in late 2010 and early January <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/11/17/psychedelic-saturn-storm/" target="_blank">also show details of the storm in psychedelic false color</a>, where the whorls and vortices of the raging weather are clear. Saturn's face is usually far more subtle and calm than this - look at the nice, smooth southern hemisphere for comparison - so the eruption of this storm was a surprise to astronomers... but surprises are good, because in many cases that's how we learn things. And I'm glad Cassini was there to get these amazing close-up shots.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ciclops.org/view/6738/Catching_Its_Tail" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/28/a-saturnian-storm-larger-than-worlds/" target="_blank">Original blog post </a></div>In March of 2011, the spacecraft MESSENGER became the first ever moon of Mercury, taking unprecedented high-resolution images of the solar system's smallest official planet. But while it was on its tortuous path to Mercury, engineers back home programmed the spacecraft to take a series of snapshots, pointing the cameras painstakingly across the solar system. The result is what you see above: every planet in the solar system, a sort of cosmic family portrait.<br /><br /> <div>Uranus and Neptune are there, but too faint to see (you should grab <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/SolarSytemPortrait.html" target="_blank">the bigger version of this</a> to see the details). Venus was relatively close to MESSENGER at the time, and so is very bright. My favorite part of this, though, is being able to see the Earth and Moon together. There's something eerie about seeing them both in pictures at the same time, nearly lost in the black (the Jupiter-bound spacecraft Juno <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/31/home-from-the-start-of-a-long-long-journey/" target="_blank">took a similar shot of our world</a> this year as well). <br /><br />It really brings home - well, so to speak - the fact that we are a speck of dust floating in space, tiny to the point of insignificance when seen like this. And yet, never forget that we <em>are</em> significant: after all, <strong>we created the machine that took this picture!</strong> I think it says a lot about us humans that not only do we send spacecraft to other worlds, but we take the time to make pictures like this. Sometimes, just sometimes, people are pretty cool. <br /> <br /><em>Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington</em></div> <br /><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/SolarSytemPortrait.html" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/18/messengers-family-portrait/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a><br /><div>The twisted magnetic fields inside of sunspots have as much or more effect on the Sun's outer layers as the gravity of our star itself. As <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/11/10/the-face-of-our-star/" target="_blank">the field lines tangle up</a>, vast towers of ionized gas (called plasma) can erupt, sometimes collapsing back onto the solar surface, and sometimes blasting off into space. These are called <em>prominences</em>, and can take on all sorts of fantastic shapes, usually in the form of plumes or arcs.<br /><br /> Solar photographer Alan Friedman took these two shots of two different prominences, both of which made me laugh when I saw them: the top one looks like a cat nuzzling the Sun, and the bottom one like a dragon!</div> <div><br />Expect to see more pictures like this over the coming years, as the Sun's activity gets even more common. Hopefully, we'll also see a dog, and perhaps St. George.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: Alan Friedman</em><br /><br />Original images: <a href="http://alanfriedman.tumblr.com/post/11279675645/cat-on-a-hot-hydrogen-roof-i-found-this-prowling" target="_blank">Cat</a> and <a href="http://www.avertedimagination.com/img_pages/delicato.html" target="_blank">Dragon</a></div> <div><br />Original blog post: <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/11/solar-purrominence/" target="_blank">Cat</a> and <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/02/the-delicate-tendrils-of-a-solar-dragon/" target="_blank">Dragon</a></div>Saturn <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/24/a-panoply-of-moons-and-rings/" target="_blank">and its rings</a> are a continuously-playing show of beauty and grace, but the giant planet also has a vast retinue of moons,<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/20/a-moody-moon-turns-its-face/" target="_blank"> each as different from each other</a> as any family of siblings (which make it very hard to pick my favorite from ones like <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/24/a-panoply-of-moons-and-rings/" target="_blank">this</a> or <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/28/peeking-past-rhea/" target="_blank">this</a>). The biggest, the aptly-named Titan, is a monster, bigger than the planet Mercury and possessing an atmosphere of nitrogen that's twice as thick as Earth's! The atmosphere is so thick and opaque that it blocks our view of the ground in visible light. Infrared light can penetrate that gloom, though, and it's not by coincidence that the Cassini spacecraft is equipped with filters and detectors designed to look in those wavelengths.<br /><br /> Using that equipment, astronomers created the first-ever multicolor map of the surface of Titan (<a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/14/a-window-into-titan/" target="_blank">a map using a single color</a> was created in 2009). This false-color map shows elevated regions (white areas), lakes of liquid methane and ethane near the north pole of the moon, and what's most amazing to me, vast areas of wind-blown dunes (shown in brown)! Those aren't grains of sand in the dunes, but grains of frozen hydrocarbons, blown across the plains by Titan's thick air. Detailed radar observations by Cassini show them to be much like dunes on Earth, but a bit chillier: the temperature on the surface of Titan is a numbing (or perhaps I should say "shattering") -180°C (-300°F). <br /><br />And yet, it's a world not so different than ours: atmosphere, liquid lakes, wind... and at those temperatures, the chemistry of methane is similar to that of water at room temperature on Earth. It's not crazy to wonder if there's life on Titan...<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/CNRS/LPGNant</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ciclops.org/view/5492/Map_of_Titan_February_2009" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/a-hidden-world-revealed-titan/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a>Of all these pictures of our planetary neighbors, I think I might love this one the most. That's us: it's home. Blue, with feathered white, the only planet to really look this way (Uranus and Neptune are both blue, but for different reasons; we have water, they have methane). This picture is from Terra, a NASA Earth-observing satellite, designed to look down and investigate our environment.<br /><br />But that's not why this picture really amazes me. Look at it more carefully: almost all you see is water! If you look to the upper right you'll see the west coast of the US, Baja California, and Mexico. <em>Everything else you see is ocean.</em> The satellite was over the Pacific when this was taken, and that expanse of water is vast, covering nearly an entire hemisphere of the planet. It's a coincidence that this is the way things are right now; continental drift changes the sizes of the oceans over geologic time scales. But still, it's a sharp reminder of just how much water we have here on Earth, and why we look for it so steadfastly on other worlds, and why we need to take our job as planetary caretakers more seriously.<br /><br /><em>Image credit: NASA</em><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1925.html" target="_blank">Original image</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/22/happy-earth-day/" target="_blank">Original blog post</a>

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December 8th, 2011 6:30 AM Tags: Earth, Mars, Mercury, Moon, Neptune, prominence, Saturn, solar flare, Sun, Titan, Triton, Vesta
by Phil Plait in Astronomy, Cool stuff, Pretty pictures, Top Post | 18 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

18 Responses to “Top 14 Solar System Pictures of 2011”

  1. 1.   Mephane Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 8:05 am

    Is there any particular reason for the choice of the number 14 (or 16 in the previously top x of y) post? Or do you just order a larger number of picture by awesomeness and then decide on a threshold where to cut off the list, and presenting whatever number of picture remains above that? *g*

  2. 2.   Brian Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 8:21 am

    The “Water World” picture is truly a beautiful one to complete this set. Water is the most singular feature that distinguishes our planet from the others. And that seeming abundance is in actuality so necessary for our own existence. Earth is truly a precious planet.

  3. 3.   Kelly Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 9:51 am

    these were truly awesome pictures-I rejoice in the universe!

  4. 4.   Ricardo Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 10:59 am

    I hope they get a more advance technology.just so they can get inside the planet and see what is really their. I liked the pictures.

  5. 5.   Tim Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 11:33 am

    I’m glad there are no signs of vulcanism on Vesta. I prefer to keep my science fiction and facts separate.

  6. 6.   Chris Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Must be a slow news day. Only one post. I want more!

  7. 7.   Messier Tidy Upper Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    @ ^ Chris : hey, there’s still time .. it’s not tomorrow yet!

    ***

    Awesome selection BA, I love it. :-D

    Although, by Jove, I’m surprised that you’ve left out any of Jupiter which has had some magnificent images and animations taken of it this year too! :-o

    I really like pictures of Earth from space, but this is one only a mother could love.

    Um, being male I can’t be a mother but *I* love this picture and suspect you (also male) do too hence its inclusion! ;-)

    It’s not actually a picture, but a map of Earth’s gravity!

    Hmm … isn’t map a sub-set of picture though – unless its in braille or something?

    Question : Do you also consider images from 2010 that were published after your last one which was also published before the year was completed and will great images taken after this but before New Years Day 2012 still get a chance to appear in one of these?

  8. 8.   de-vilish-sly Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    A better link to the full set of Nathanial Burton-Bradford’s 3-D geoids is
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/29774727@N04/sets/72157627859373336/detail/

    – Sure would be interesting to see similar views of (at least) the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars … maybe even Old Sol himself?

  9. 9.   passerby Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    The picture of the prominences of the sun, where you compared one to a cat and the other to a dragon, I would like to redirect people to the second photo.

    It indeed looks like a dragon, sitting down and facing something. But, near the right edge of the view, a distance away from the ‘dragon’, there’s a prominence in an upright shape, wearing what looks like a horned helmet. Seeing that, and hearing your description, immediately brought a certain trailer to mind:

    “There is one that they fear. In their tongue, he is dovahkiin. Dragonborn.”

    I knew Skyrim was popular, but I never expected it to be popular with the laws of physics.

  10. 10.   Messier Tidy Upper Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Hmm .. you also left off my personal favourite solar system image of the year :

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/20/pluto-has-another-moon/

    featuring the discovery of Pluto’s fourth moon.

  11. 11.   Messier Tidy Upper Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    @7. :

    Although, by Jove, I’m surprised that you’ve left out any of Jupiter which has had some magnificent images and animations taken of it this year too!

    Like, say, this one :

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/24/jupiter-the-bringer-of-jollity/

    or this one :

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/07/jupiter-and-ganymede-in-exquisite-detail/

    Or maybe this one :

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/12/royal-observatory-astronomy-photographer-of-the-year-chosen/

    Ie the winning shot according to the Royal Observatory.

    Still, I’m not complaining – there’s just so many good images to choose from aren’t there! :-)

  12. 12.   Messier Tidy Upper Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    @ ^ PS. Yeah, I know the “Jupiter Bringer of Jollity” one was posted on Christmas Eve last year – but it missed out on consideration for last years “top 14″ since that was posted earlier on the 14th Dec. (with the “runners up” on the 20th Dec.) so I reckon it might’ve merited inclusion here.

    Of course, these things will always be subjective and Your Milage Astronomical Units May Vary! ;-)

    So many great images get posted here. Hmmm and videos and time lapses – suggestion please BA, maybe we could get a top 10 of those? ;-)

    PPS. Yes I know that “Jupiter – Bringer o’Jollity” one is a video not a photo too – but then there’s a still image from it posted too so that counts, right, maybe? ;-)

  13. 13.   Phil Plait Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    Messier: Holy cow, I totally missed the one of Pluto! Well, drat. I might add it if I get a chance. Thanks for pointing that out.

  14. 14.   Sno*man Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Phil, bought and read the book, I’m a big fan, the whole slow down, relax, this is what’s actually happening thing really strikes a chord. So, not that I have anything to back me up, other than instinct, but that ‘storm’ on Saturn looks more like a plume (think volcano, or the smoke from a cigarette in still air) that gets caught at upper altitude by way faster atmospheric ‘wind’…
    I brought this up elsewhere at the time and was summarily dismissed but without any actual reason.
    I wonder if you know any more about this ‘storm’…

  15. 15.   Messier Tidy Upper Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    No worries BA. Thankyou. :-)

  16. 16.   db26 Says:
    December 8th, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    No offense, but you have 4 photos worthy of any recognition here…the 3 sun photos (including the menage a trois) and the Saturn pic. Scrap the rest as marbles in microscopes…

  17. 17.   My World and More ..: Best Of 2011 Says:
    December 21st, 2011 at 11:35 am

    [...] Top 14 Solar System Pictures of 2011 People Who mattered  [...]

  18. 18.   Matt B. Says:
    February 22nd, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    “…the Earth itself blocks the Sun all the time (of course, if you want to be pedantic, it happens to us on the surface every time the Sun sets). NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory stares at the Sun 24/7/365…”

    If you want to be really pedantic, you can point out that “24/7/365″ is meaningless. First, you want to multiply the quantities, not divide them. But even then the units don’t come out right: (24 hr/dy)*(7 dy/wk)*(365 dy/yr) comes out to 61320 hr-dy/wk-yr. What you really want is 24*7*52.1775.

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