Lunar Coda

Luna and Venus - they're old friends in the sky. By David Cortner.

From the ISS. Look how thin our atmosphere is! All it would take is a big gust of solar wind from the sun to blow it all away, and there's nothing we could do to prevent it. We'd know it's coming a few days in advance, so I suppose bunkers could be stocked and whatnot, but surely, t'would be our doom.

Hurricane Emily, also from the ISS. Wouldn't it be awesome to be the official photographer on board - like, that was your job? All the other astronauts gotta turn nobs and shit while you just snap sweet pics all day/night - which occur like every hour.

Behold the power of the storm - precisely the same form we theorize blackholes to possess, if you could imagine it in 3 dimensions rather than the 2 here (A sphere as opposed to a plane). All points rotate towards the center due to the enormous change in pressure - low pressure, man. Real low. The lowest - and so all things fall towards it, increasingly fast as you get closer to the center. Speed causes heat and heat is energy which does work. Or, in this case, flip a ton of shit over.

Also, yay President Barack Hussein Obama!

In the fight against insanity and outright nihilism, Bronco Bamz is our greatest fighter, and deserves all our support. As you can see, even Luna supports BHO - so should you! That is, if you stand against nihilism. Some don't. They suck. 27%

Knowing is half the battle

Click for big. I'm wrapping up our exploration of the Solar System's moons, and so I give you REDSHIRTS TOP TEN MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM!

Based on coolness/interest/possible exploration potential.
10. Mimas - Death Star moon, y'all. Also reminds me of Mimosas, which I've only had like twice in my life, but gosh do I love the word.
9. Phobos - interesting example of captured asteroid, and will serve as an ideal staging base for trips down to Mars.
8. Triton - a captured planet, the other moon with an atmosphere and cyrovolcanoes
7.Ganymede - the biggest, but kinda boring.
6. Io - HELLFIRE!
5. Luna - boring, but we're married, and we love her so.
4. Enceladus - so much coolness
3. Europa - More water here than on Earth - by many factors. Probably home to weird ass alien whales too. We'll find out eventually.
2. Titan - just so exotic yet familiar. It's Earth, if you replaced oxygen with methane and lowered the temperature by 200 degrees C.
1. Calisto! - Big moon, with ice sitting on the surface, right at the edge of the asteroid belt, and out of the radiation field of Jupiter. It's got it all for a future truck stop.

For bonus reference:

Coda 1: Many moons ago, as they say, there was a dust up here on ye olde Redshirt's Lament about the perception that the moon seems bigger when rising/setting than when directly overhead. The common answer to this is it's an optical illusion, caused by the brain comparing objects on the horizon, whereas there is no such comparison available when it's high overhead. And while this is no doubt correct, it's not 100% correct. Witness:

Luna is not in a perfect orbit, and thus it is closer to us at some times. This closeness does translate to a perceived size difference, shown here. Also, more controversially:

From the ISS. You can see the changes in shape as the moon rises above the distorting affects of the atmosphere. Close up:

Also from the ISS. Conclusive proof the atmosphere does change the way we see Luna, stretching it out, making it seem bigger. So take that! Bonus Luna pic:

I knew the sun could show a "green flash" when setting, under certain conditions. I was unaware Luna could do the same - but here it is. All green flashy.

And now you know.

One to One

Guess this moon. Winner gets a cyber pat on the imaginary back.

Green circled areas are confirmed water ice locations on this moon. Red circles proposed locations, not yet confirmed.

We've crashed our probes into this moon just to watch the explosion. Heh.

It's got some nice mountains, though the skiing is not great.

Give up yet?

Our Moon - Luna! Hooray! Without her we'd not be here, and perhaps no life at all upon this planet. The importance of a large, single moon is immeasurable for Earth. Thanks for everything, Moon!

Our moon is most likely the resut of a titanic collision between the proto-earth and a Mars sized planet (now part of the Earth and Luna), and it is in large part because of this collision and subsequent reformation of the large iron core in Earth, and the large and stable moon, that has led directly to you and me being here, in splendor.

Forever Young

Io, 4th largest moon of Sol's System. It's just a bit bigger than our Luna, yet oh so different.

For you see, Io is literally HELL in space. A moon of fire and magma, roiling land exploding, pits of burning damnation, etc. As such, the surface of Io is continually made anew, and thus has the fewest impact craters of any object save Sol itself.

This is a difference of 5 months. Huge zit out of nowhere - just before Space Prom, too.

A few other months. As you can see, in the blink of a geologic eye Io changes before us. Such is the temptation of HELL. Like Enceladus's CRYOVOLCANOES, Io's heat comes from tidal friction between Jupiter and the other large moons in the system. But the force on Io is far greater than on any other, and so it burns. I suppose one day it will be ripped apart, and then form a pretty ring. But already, Io has its ring:

Due to close proximity, Io interacts with mighty Jupiter in surprising ways. It's joined to its magnetic field, affecting the shape of that field. It creates a huge torus of plasma in a giant ring around the planet, made up of Io's atmosphere. It also dumps an enormous amount of material onto Jupiter, much of which falls at the North and South Pole, as witnessed in this Jovian aurora:

Ganymede and Europa are also bound directly to Jupiter's magnetic field, creating a loop of material exchange. As noted before, the 4th moon, Callisto, is not bound. And thus is free of the ravages of Jupiter's radiation to a great degree, and thus, our future space depot. But anyway, Io:

Some real time super massive volcano action in progress. You can see why it gives Jupiter 1 ton of material every second. Have it!

Technically, Io is the fifth moon out from Jupiter, but really is the first, since the inner 4 pale in size comparison. As do the rest of Jupiter's near 70 moons - most are irregular lumps of rock a few hundred miles wide, whereas the 4 big moons of Jupiter are all dwarf planet sized - two of them bigger than Mercury, and the other two just below. It's a mighty collection of moons, discovered way back in 1609 by Galileo. Here's how they look through an average telescope today:

From left to right: Europa, Io, Jupiter - King O' the Planets, don't ya ken - Ganymede (biggest moon) and my dear Callisto. Twas an amazing discovery, since it immediately raised a lot of questions - IF moons could orbit other planets, than we could be orbiting the Sun rather vice versa, and the Sun could in turn orbit another star, and that way lies infinity, and the opening of the human mind to something far, far bigger than himself, or Earth: The Universe. Praise be.

Venus and Luna

Another redshirt shot of Venus and The Pleiades, with a very special guest "Ring around the Moon (w/ cloud)"! Not a shop in any way, just some funky clouds making it all spectral and astral n' stuff. Word. Click for big. Bonus ring pic:

I'm ashamed to admit I don't have a big enough lens to capture phenomena like Ye Olde Moon Ring in their entirety. This was the best I could do to fit it all in one pic - no dice. It was a huge ring around the Moon, and striking to behold, especially with the bright planets to the lower right. The night sky is amazing when you can finally see it, free of interference.

The source of myth in fact - consider, even ancient pre-humans understood the movement of stars and planets. They understood this "cage" we live in - with the stars far, far away, disappearing during the day when a giant fireball awakened. Which some figured out, way, way back when, was just another star, like all the lights of night. That will blow even an Erectus mind.

Also too: As I've said before, we need to call our moon a name, not "The Moon". The word "moon" refers to any natural satellite in orbit around a planet. Our moon is but one of hundreds (millions really when you consider Saturn's rings are made up of pieces of ice and each piece is technically a moon) of moons in our Solar System, and one of hundreds of billions in our galaxy, and mayhaps of trillions across the Universe. As you see, referring to the awesome object orbiting Earth as "The Moon" is no descriptor anymore.

I propose Luna, which is a cheat, sure, but Latin is classy. I am open to suggestions, though of course I will have no role whatsoever in naming our moon. Thank you for your support.