Tag: Jupiter

Secrets of Antarctica’s 15-Million Year-Old Lake

Posted by Nexus – 19/03/2010

[via dailygalaxy.com]

Researchers have thawed ice estimated to be perhaps a million years old or more from above Lake Vostok, an ancient lake that lies hidden more than two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica using novel genomic techniques to determine how tiny, living “time capsules” survived the ages in total darkness, in freezing cold, and without food and energy from the sun.

Lake Vostok is located beneath four kilometers of ice in East Antarctica. The lake is approximately 250 km long and 50 km wide. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleo-climatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for as long as 15 million years.

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Hong Kong Sky

Posted by Nexus – 07/02/2010

[via APOD]

Click on image for full-size picture (2048x1365)

This remarkable scene combines multiple exposures recorded on the evening of January 18th from a waterside perspective in Hong Kong, China. It follows a young crescent Moon, with brilliant planet Jupiter to its left, as they set together in the western sky. Their two luminous trails are faintly paralleled by trails of background stars.

But easier to pick out are the short, bright airplane trails converging toward the horizon and the Hong Kong International Airport that seem to offer a frenzied imitation of the celestial tracks. Of course, the reflection of city lights and boat traffic follows the water’s surface. Streaking car lights define the span of the cable-stayed Ting Kau bridge.

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Watch Jupiter Rotate

Posted by Nexus – 26/01/2010

[via APOD]

What would it be like to coast by Jupiter and watch it rotate? This was just the experience of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approached and flew by Jupiter in 2007. Clicking on the image will bring up a movie of what the robotic spacecraft saw. Visible above in the extensive atmosphere of the Solar System’s largest planet are bands and belts of light and dark clouds, as well as giant rotating storm systems seen as ovals.

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Nasa’s new space telescope finds five new planets outside our solar system.

Posted by Digital Vendetta – 10/01/2010

Nasa’s new planet-hunting telescope has discovered its first five worlds beyond our Solar System.

Numerous planets have been found before by other telescopes, such as Hubble, but the sole mission of the Kepler observatory – launched last year – has been to find potential ‘Earths’ elsewhere in our galaxy.

Unfortunately life is unlikely to survive on the new planets as they are thought to generate hellish heat. Estimated temperatures of the worlds range from 1,200 to 1,650 degrees Celsius, hotter than molten lava.

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