Quintet of Moons
A quintet of Saturn’s moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft’s field of view for this portrait.
Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image. Brightly reflective Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) appears above the center of the image. Saturn’s second largest moon, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across), is bisected by the right edge of the image. The smaller moon Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles across) can be seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Milky Way above Easter Island
This dramatic scene definitely inspired ancient residents of the Easter Island as it amaze us today. Silhouetted against the southern Milky Way and starry sky of this isolated Pacific Ocean island, are large statues, locally called Moais, remained from 13th to 15th century.
By Wally Pacholka
addendum to earlier post linking to Astronomy Photographer of the year, here’s a really good one:
Fighting Dragons of Ara (NGC 6188 and 6164) by Michael Sidonio (Australia). He writes: “I wanted to showcase this beautiful piece of Ara in a fresh new way, that would highlight the amazing structures and also reveal the rarely imaged faint expanding shell around NGC 6164.”
