... Jupiter's Rings . ... Unlike Saturn's bright rings which are composed of chunks of rock and ice, Jupiter's rings appear to consist of fine particles of dust. ... Exploring Saturn's Rings . ... By watching a star flicker and fade as it passed behind Saturn's rings, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft was able explore the ring system in amazing detail. ... Saturn's spectacular system of bright rings has been the subject of study and wonder since Galileo first turned his telescope on the ringed planet in 1610....

... Each day we feature a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. August 2, 1995 . Jupiter's Rings . ... Unlike Saturn's bright rings which are composed of chunks of rock and ice, Jupiter's rings appear to consist of fine particles of dust. ... We keep a chronological archive and a subject sorted archive of Astronomy Pictures of the Day. ...

Amalthea . Jupiter V . Amalthea [am-al-THEE-uh] is one of Jupiter's smaller moons. ... These four images of Jupiter's moon, Amalthea, were taken by Galileo's solid state imaging system at various times between February and June 1997. ... Amalthea, whose longest dimension is approximately 247 kilometers (154 miles) across, is tidally locked so that the same side of the satellite always points towards Jupiter, similar to how the near side of our own Moon always points toward Earth. ...

M1 image More About M1 Nice Color Picture . ... M16 image More About M16 HST image . ... M31 image More About M31 Nice Color Picture . ... M42 image ; M43 image More About M42/43 Nice Color CCD Picture . M51 image More About M51 Color Image of M51 M51 Supernova . M57 image More About M57 Nice Color CCD Picture Very Deep M57 Image . ... M81 image More About M81 M81 Supernova Ultraviolet Image of M81 More about Ultraviolet Imaging . M82 image More About M82 M82 False Color M82 True Color . ...

... In summer 1994, the biggest news in astronomy was the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. During this school year, Jupiter will charge back into the limelight with the arrival of the Galileo spacecraft (see figure 8 ). On Dec. 7, following a tortuous six-year ramble through the solar system, Galileo will begin its two-year mission studying Jupiter and its gaggle of moons. ... Besides the camera, Galileo will carry instruments capable of identifying minerals on Jupiter's moons. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

Amalthea . Jupiter V . Amalthea [am-al-THEE-uh] is one of Jupiter's smaller moons. ... It was also the first moon of Jupiter to be discovered since Galileo's discovery of the four Galilean Moons in 1610. Amalthea is extremely irregular, having dimensions of about 270x165x150 kilometers in diameter. ... Discovered by . ... Topographic Map of Amalthea . ... As with all maps, it is the cartographer's interpretation; not all features are necessarily certain given the limited data available. ...

Image credit: Michael Nolan, Arecibo Observatory. These radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2001 SN263 were obtained on 2008 Feb 12 and 13. ... Image from Feb 12 . ... First near-Earth triple asteroid discovered by Arecibo Observatory . ... was discovered this week by astronomers at the sensitive radar telescope at Cornell University?s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. ... For example, Arecibo has discovered more than half of the near-Earth binary asteroid systems discovered since 1999. ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Image courtesy of Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute . ... There are already 29 multi-planet extrasolar planetary systems discovered (including this last one), so what makes this particular system unique? ... International Year of Astronomy, Ireland National Node . ...

Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . This page is devoted to information on Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . Basic information on this SN, including the last reported brightness, on this Supernova can be found on the main page . Information on the original web pages for many of these images can be found on the updates and links web pages. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (USA) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan). ... 2009/10/11.44 . 17.2 . ... Joseph Brimacombe . ...