Jupiter’s North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered In Solar System

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Our solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are a few things to know this week:

1. We’re Going In

To be honest, Jupiter is kind of a monster. Not only is it the biggest planet in the solar system, but it also wields the most dangerous radiation and other powerful forces. Despite the risks, our Juno probe is going in close, because Jupiter also holds precious clues to how the planets formed, including our own. Arrival date: July 4. Watch the Juno mission trailer video HERE.

2. Moon Maps

The moon is beautiful in the sky, and also up close—sometimes even in the maps that scientists use to study its surface. Here are some evocative maps that lunar geologists have drawn up to chart the landscapes in the moon’s dramatic Tycho Crater. Take a look HERE.

3. That’s No Moon…Sort Of

The full moon we’ll see this week is not Earth’s only companion in space. Astronomers have discovered a small asteroid in an orbit around the sun that keeps it near the Earth, where it will remain for centuries. But it’s not exactly a second moon, either.

4. Power Blast

Venus has an “electric wind” strong enough to remove the components of water from its upper atmosphere, which may have played a significant role in stripping Earth’s twin planet of its oceans, according to new results from the European Space Agency (ESA) Venus Express mission by NASA-funded researchers.

5. How Green (Well, Red) Was My Valley

“Marathon Valley” slices through the rim of a large crater on Mars. It has provided fruitful research targets for our Opportunity rover since July 2015, but now the rover’s team is preparing to move on.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

North American Nebula js

Hubble views a spectacular supernova with interstellar material over 160,000 light-years away by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the remnants of a long-dead star. These rippling wisps of ionized gas, named DEM L316A, are located some 160,000 light-years away within one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbors — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The explosion that formed DEM L316A was an example of an especially energetic and bright variety of supernova, known as a Type Ia. Such supernova events are thought to occur when a white dwarf star steals more material than it can handle from a nearby companion, and becomes unbalanced. The result is a spectacular release of energy in the form of a bright, violent explosion, which ejects the star’s outer layers into the surrounding space at immense speeds. As this expelled gas travels through the interstellar material, it heats up and ionizes it, producing the faint glow that Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured here. The LMC orbits the Milky Way as a satellite galaxy and is the fourth largest in our group of galaxies, the Local Group. DEM L316A is not the only supernova remnant in the LMC; Hubble came across another one in 2010 with SNR 0509, and in 2013 it snapped SNR 0519. Image credit: ESA (European Space Agency)/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu

The Spider and the Fly - IC 417

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope floats ~93 million miles from earth as it silently observes our universe. In this image we see the nebula IC 417, located in the constellation Auriga, about 10,000 light-years away. Star formation is occurring rapidly in this nebula.

“A cluster of young stars called “Stock 8” can be seen at the top. The light from this cluster carves out a bowl in the nearby dust clouds, seen here as green fluff. Along the sinuous tail in the center and to the bottom, groupings of red point sources are also young stars.”

Credit: NASA/JPL

Into the storm

Our Moon along with Jupiter and it’s 4 largest moons.

Image Credit & Copyright: Cristian Fattinnanzi

Mercury is passing directly across the sun for the first time in nearly a decade.

The innermost planet of our solar system will look like a small, dark circle cutting across the sun’s disc. In the U.S., the transit began shortly after 7 a.m. ET on Monday and will continue for more than seven hours.

At least part of the transit, which only happens about 13 times every century, will be visible across the Americas, Europe, Africa and large portions of Asia.

If you’re hoping to watch it, eye protection is key. NASA stresses that “viewing this event safely requires a telescope or high-powered binoculars fitted with solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar.”

You won’t be able to see the tiny dot of Mercury on its celestial crawl without magnification, NASA says.

Another option: Check out one of the multiple live-streaming events going on Monday. NASA says it will stream the transit here, here and here.

It’s not all about the show — transits like this one have historically been, and continue to be, important research opportunities for scientists. First observed in 1631, the transits were later used to “measure the distance between the Earth and the Sun,”NASA said.

Now, they provide scientists an opportunity to study the planets’ exospheres — the thin layer of gases that make up their atmosphere.

“When Mercury is in front of the sun, we can study the exosphere close to the planet,” NASA scientist Rosemary Killen said in a release from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Sodium in the exosphere absorbs and re-emits a yellow-orange color from sunlight, and by measuring that absorption, we can learn about the density of gas there.”

Additionally, scientists have found that a transiting planet causes a drop in the sun’s brightness.

This phenomenon is “the main way we find planets outside the solar system,” NASA says.

The Kepler mission, which is searching for habitable planets, has found 1,041 planets to date using the transit method. The mission says it is able to determine the size of a planet by observing its transit.

Image Credit: NASA

Just Another Milky Way Shot Taken From Death Valley, CA

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“Soap Bubble with Crescent, NGC6888” by Ivan Eder on Flickr.