Anyway, it is very nice to watch the pictures of Jupiter, Saturn or Mars published by them.
Jupiter was visited in the early ages of space exploration by the Voyager and Pioneer missions. However, the first really breathtaking images of the planet were provided by the NASA/ESA Cassini Huygens mission in 2000. This mission was bounded for Saturn but was also useful to study Jupiter and its system (Europa, Io...). Some nice shots now:
They are so beautiful than look more like a drawing than like the real pictures they are! (even though they must be colour compositions...)
Jupiter has been recently visited by the New Horizons probe on its way to Pluto. This probe has oriented its cameras towards this planet and its moons and taken breathtaking images... Have a look at this one. It is a volcanic eruption on Io. Beautiful!
The Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn and its moons in 2004 and will be working there until at least 2009. From time to time, some nice pictures of the system are published and some nice news are released. For example, last March, NASA made public that liquid water might have been found on Enceladus, one of Saturn moons. More pictures... Saturn and its rings now...
However, the most outstanding missions have been the ones to Mars, with all these nice landers and rovers developed by JPL; Mars Pathfinder in 97 and Spirit and Opportunity in 2004. Have a look at this nice sunset or sunrise in Mars... Cool...
Now the interest is in orbiters such as ESA Mars Express or NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter... Maybe to look for places for an eventual manned mission landing on Mars in 20-25 years...
3 comments:
Pues si, eso de tener que desarollar cosas que el JPL ya tiene desde hace años, sin poder acceder a ellas como punto de partida para mejorar, es un atraso, Pero eso no quita que las fotos sean una maravilla. De hecho son una ventana abierta al universo, que despiertan la imaginación de el más incrédulo.
Un saludete tio!!!
David
Hola David!
Pues si si... la verdad es q estas fotos inspiran bastante... siempre que te gusten las cosas de espacio... y si no, por lo menos son interesantes!
Disfruta de las vacaciones hasta que llegues a Austria!!
Hola de nuevo;
Estaba ojeando tu blog, y me encuentro con temas del espacio. Y he de reconocer que, aunque mi "feudo" sea la egiptología, los temas del universo y nuestro sistema solar me gustan bastante. Tienes ahí una imagen de Io, con uno de sus volcanes en erupción, leí hace tiempo que los volcanes de Io se debían al "calentamiento de marea o por marea", realmente no lo llegué a entender. ¿Te gusta la astronomia?
Saludos
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