Mercury: A Cratered Inferno . ... Credit: Mariner 10 , NASA Explanation: Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. ... But Mercury is unique in many ways. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun , orbiting at about 1/3 the radius of the Earth's orbit . As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius to an unbearably hot 400 degrees Celsius . ... NASA Official: Jay Norris. ...

... Editor's choices for the most educational Astronomy Pictures of the Day about Earth's Moon: . ... Explanation: Our Moon's appearance changes nightly. This time-lapse sequence shows what our Moon looks like during a lunation , a complete lunar cycle. ... APOD: 2003 May 22 - Eclipsed Moon Montage . Explanation: After watching this month's lunar eclipse, amateur astronomer Sebastien Gauthier carefully composed this montage of telescopic images of the Moon sliding through planet Earth's shadow. ...

Lunar Libration . Articles | ... Actually, a slight rocking motion, called libration,* makes about 59% of the Moon's surface visible from our planet Earth -- though only 50% at any one time. ... Add to that, the approximate 1.5 degree tilt of the Moon's equator to the ecliptic, and you have the inclination of the Moon's equator to the plane of its orbit around Earth at some 6.5 degrees (5 + 1.5 = 6.5). ... Re-published on Astronomy Net with permission of the author. ... www.astronomy.net . ...

... UA SCIENTIST & TEAM DISCOVER SURFACE FEATURES COVER TITAN (Science contacts: Peter H. Smith, (602) 621-2725; Mark Lemmon, (602) 621-1485; UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory) . Scientists for the first time have made images of the surface of Saturn 's giant, haze-shrouded moon, Titan. ... About three weeks before Cassini's first flyby of Titan, the spacecraft is to release the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe to parachute to Titan's surface. ... Upper left: hemisphere facing Saturn. ...

Scientists Discover Surface Features on Titan . ... Scientists for the first time have made images of the surface of Saturn 's giant, haze-shrouded moon, Titan. ... Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and his team took the images with the Hubble Space Telescope during 14 observing runs between Oct. ... About three weeks before Cassini's first flyby of Titan, the spacecraft is to release the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe to parachute to Titan's surface. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Observing . ... The double star 54 Leonis, spiral galaxy NGC 3198, and emission nebula NGC 3199 . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Bright planets meet at dusk . ... Astronomy magazine subscribers can read the full article for free. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter....

... Bad Astronomy . ... On Thursday, February 15th 2001 (and replayed on March 19), the Fox TV network aired a program called ``Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?'', hosted by X-Files actor Mitch Pileggi. ... Dust around the lander . ... However, it appeals to our common sense: when the sky is black here on Earth, we see stars. ... Bad: The program claims that when the top half of the lander took off from the Moon to bring the astronauts back into orbit, there was no flame from the rocket. ...

In this gallery are many images of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies which have recently been discovered and analyzed. ... The central surface brightness of this galaxy is 24.28 . Malin 2 This galaxy is another huge disk galaxy with a scale length of 15 kpc and a redshift of 15000 km/a. The high surface brightness knot in one of its spiral arms actually has the same color, luminosity and H-alpha equivalent width as the entire Large Magellanic Cloud . ... Truly it is a Low Surface Brightness Galaxy. ...

RELATIVE SUNSPOT NUMBERS Description of Data from SGD Explanation of Data Reports: Relative Sunspot Numbers -- The relative sunspot number is an index of the activity of the entire visible disk of the Sun. ... The provisional daily Zurich relative sunspot numbers, Rz, were based upon observations made at Zurich and its two branch stations in Arosa and Locarno and communicated by M. Waldmeier of the Swiss Federal Observatory. ... This indicates the uncertainty above and below the predicted number. ...

I was wondering what conditions should be met to have the "darkest" sky .. ... Upon the above publication of the Southern Galactic hemisphere, TunГ Tezel started seeking opportunities to create the Northern counterpart image. ... So, the initial quest of having the darkest possible sky have delivered us these two all-sky images of the two galactic hemispheres as seen from Planet Earth. Zoomable and 'full-screenable' fisheye view of the "darkest sky" Southern Galactic Hemisphere image. ...

Журнал ПОВЕРХНОСТЬ публикует оригинальные статьи и обзоры по наиболее актуальным проблемам изучения поверхностных явлений. ... Редакция журнала 'Поверхность. ... Англоязычная версия журнала Journal of Surface Investigation . X-Ray, Synchrotron and Neutron Techniques выходит 6 раз в год . The Journal of Surface Investigation. X-ray, Synchrotron and Neutron Techniques ( Poverkhnost '. ... X-ray, Synchrotron and Neutron Techniques is abstracted and/or indexed in (Impact Factor 0.359): . ...

... Rough topography, a large mountain, impact craters, grooves, and steep scarps characterize this region. ... Dawn Science Team Presents Early Science Results . ... Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission are sharing with other scientists and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta. ... If you enjoyed this excerpt from a feature article and would like to receive our quarterly Mercury magazine, we invite you to join the ASP and receive 4 issues a year. ...

Microsymposium 38, MS083, 2003 (A4 format) MERCURY: LOCAL VARIATIONS OF THE PHOTOMETRIC RELIEF. ... Because of trajectory and pointing angle constraints the planet could be observed from Mariner 10 only over a small range of phase angles between about 75o and 110o. Therefore the photometric investigations are restricted to measuring the distribution of brightness on the Mercurian disk. ... Raw versions of real-time processing pictures FDS 0000984 and FDS 0000986 were used (images 196 and 202). ...

... The Russian TESIS/ CORONAS-PHOTON Solar Observatory, which has been working in orbit since January 30th, 2009, has photographed one of the most important events in the build up to the upcoming solar cycle - the formation of our star's new southern belt of activity. The first magnetic fields of the new cycle in the southern hemisphere appeared on the Sun's surface on May 23-24th. ... The belt of activity is one of the primary concepts, characterizing the solar cycle. ...

... Ciel Espace, le magazine qui vous guide toujours plus loin . ... des pages consacr†йes †а la publication de vos photos Mais c'est aussi une vraie communaut†й avec laquelle partager votre passion et nourrir votre curiosit†й. Accueil Images de la com†иte Tempel 1 : le crat†иre de Deep Impact invisible . ... Les images rapproch†йes de la com†иte Tempel 1 prises par la sonde Stardust permettent de reconna†оtre la r†йgion o†µ s'est †йcras†й l'impacteur de Deep Impact en 2005. ... Etat du ciel . ...

Go directly to the moons of: . Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto . MARS . Pronunciation . Earth's Moon . ... Aeolis . ... Aestuum . ... Aeria . ... A-muh-ZAHN-is . ...

... The Moon (1) . ... At any time, only half of the Moon's surface is visible from Earth, but librations allow us to "peek around the edges." ... Just as the rotation axis of the Earth is inclined by (90њ?23.5њ) to the Earth-Sun direction ( drawing above , from section #3 "Seasons of the year"), so the rotation axis of the Moon is inclined by about (90њ?6.5њ) to the mean Moon-Earth line. ... When it speeds up, the rotation of the Moon-Earth line around the Earth (measured in degrees per hour) is faster...

On 01may11 dana noticed that the turret floor was not moving smoothly when it passed through some turret positions. ... sample turret motor amp and speed output once/second. move turret from 26 to 339 degrees and back. do the moves at 3deg/sec, 1 deg/sec, and .25 deg/sec. The plots show the motor current and speed for the various motions (.ps) ( .pdf ): . ... black: master motor current moving clockwise (CW) . red: slave motor current while moving clockwise(CW) . ... up to turret page . ...

Next: Sample instrument files Up: Instrument configuration and Previous: Other detectors: DET= . ... Possible values are 'CLEAN' , if the mirrors have been re-coated or cleaned within two weeks of the observing run, and/or a flashlight beam is barely visible on optical surfaces; 'AVERAGE' , if a flashlight beam is plainly visible on the optical surface, but the dirt is not very bad; and 'DIRTY' , if shining a flashlight beam on the primary produces a sensation of revulsion in a trained observer. ...

The Star called the Sun. The Sun as the star . ... The visible star value . ... Spectrum class . ... 149 597 870 km . ... The Solar energy sourse is the core transformation of the Sun, where temperature is 15 000 000 K. The energy from inside is carried by irradiation and then in the external layer with 0,2 Ra of thikness - by convection. ... The Earth, situating far from the Sun (149 mil km), receives about 2.1017 W of the Solar beam energy (see item "The Solar constant" ). ...