Remember the Titans

Titan = not just another Ice Moon.

Stunning doesn't do it justice.

Sure.

OK!

That's Dione, FYI.

Cassini

That "star" you see in the middle right is actually Earth. Our world, from Cassini.

Cassini is currently cruising around Saturn, taking it all in.

Cassini is one of mankind's greatest achievements, on par with the pyramids etc. And I mean that both ironically and unironically.

Tower Truths

I owe much to this tower, this Empire State Building. If not for it, I would not be in New Gondolin. So here's to you, the Original Tower (OT):

LADEE to space. To the moon, in fact.

Born Again

The longest night has passed, and our days grow longer. Slowly, to be sure, and months more of crushing Winter just now officially begins. But be of good cheer, we are reborn! And this is the true reason for the season.

Protip: The BNP is racist as hell.

Merry X-Mas!

Letting Go

I'm not sure if this is a Buddhist tradition, or an Indian tradition, but regardless, it's beautiful. Little candles that create fragile balloons which float off into the sky (probably landing and starting brush fires).

We are little candles that float in this world, for a time. This world is a little candle that floats in space, for a time. We're all just points of light, floating.

Stuff in the Sky

Moonrise! Bright as a star. Fun fact to ponder - the light from the Moon is reflected light from the Sun. This light was created in the center of the Sun millions of years ago, finally escaped, streamed across space, hit the moon and bounced off, right into your eye. Where it bounces off again, but the energy is translated by your brain as... Moonlight.

The ISS, racing across the sky. There's six people up in there! Also, that sure looks like the Northern Lights, but I didn't see it with my eyes. So that's either a trick of light and clouds, or the Northern Lights can appear below my vision's threshold, but can show up on a longer exposure.

Moonset, an hour after an August Sunset. Fun project if you have a view of the Western horizon and some time - note how Moonset shifts over the year. You might be surprised!

All photos, once again, Redshirt Inc. Click for big! Prints available! I also can DJ weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

Asteroid's got a Moon

Here's the asteroid "Ida" (31K diameter) with its very own moon, Dactyl (1.4K diameter). Coming at ya live!

That Ida has a cute little moon gives scientists reason to believe many/most larger asteroids have moons as well, since, as the idea goes, debris is scattered around the asteroids often enough, and it's more than likely some of this debris will form an orbit, at least for awhile.
Here's tiny Dactyl, cutest li'l baby moon of Sol's System!

Once again, just for perspective, there's more accessible metals and precious stuff like gold on rocks like Dactyl than ever dug up on Earth, for all of time. Just waiting for us out there. Or, conversely, on an eventual collision course. Either way, we're rich!

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.

Fear and Terror

Almost a planet, Phobos (Fear) got deformed and twisted, multiple impacted, rent hither and sent yonder out from wherever it was formed. To be caught in Martian gravity, and become a moon. And so you now know the two types of moons: Planetoids, and captured asteroids.

Deimos (Terror) looks like an embryo, floating in the great yonder. Remarkably free of impact craters. But like Phobos, just a captured asteroid.

Click for big - the proportional size and distance of the two moons of Mars. These moons are asteroids, of course, captured somehow long ago by Martian gravity and in orbit ever since. But not forever - each satellite is destined to crash into Mars, and how cool will that be when Fear and Terror destroy the God of War? Peace.

Phobos - the logical home of any future man mission to Mars. For, it is far easier to launch craft from Phobos towards the surface of Mars than from Earth. And it is easy for craft from Earth to reach Phobos in orbit. Win-Win for everyone. Phobos, to the future!

Check out them striations! The fact is, these asteroids as moons make up most of the moon count in the solar system. Should they count? Or should only proper spheres? If spheres only, Saturn wins for most moons. And perhaps Jupiter has reason to worry...

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.

Titanomachia

Titan (and Mimas - the Death Star moon)! Second biggest moon in the Solar System, and maybe first in our hearts (tough choices). It is one of two moons with an atmosphere, and a very thick one at that. Nitrogen based, like Earth's. However, Earth has no views like this:

An excellent art piece as well. For reference, Titan is bigger than Mercury, and far more interesting, though that's an opinion I suppose. What Titan tells us - and all the other cool moons, but especially Titan - is that moons can be quite diverse, and that large planets can have quite many of them, acting like mini "solar" systems. Saturn to date has a confirmed 62 moons, with more likely to come. More art:

I can't tell you all their names correctly, except Titan at center, occulted. Each moon can exert a gravitational influence on the other moons, and I'm sure one day we'll discover a moon with a moon. It will be cool. For now, appreciate Titan:

False color Titan pics showing the changing cloud formations. It rains on Titan. There's lakes:

More false color. "False color" means scientists have assigned colors to the image based on the data at hand. It's accurate for what it is, but also subjective to a degree, though also close enough. For the record, just about any cool color space shot you've seen is false color to some degree. Here's the real deal:

More lakes! The fishin' ain't so good though, one assumes. As the liquid on Titan is methane, and the mountains and valleys and boulders and rocks are ice. Wicked hard ice - the temp on the surface is around -200 degrees Celsius. Cold as heck. It is truly an alien world, but oh so familiar:

Titan seas, with islands. One day our robot children will vacation on the shores of Methane Sea.

Rivers of methane emptying into methane seas. It's like Earth, but will never be like Earth. Titan is highly inhospitable to us, and so it will be left to the robots. Check out this amazing pic:

The surface of Titan, as seen by Huygens - a probe shot from Cassini during its early years. Another feather in the cap of this amazing science mission. Those are little pebbles of ice. Rounded from some type of erosion, be it liquid or wind. Titan has all the weather we have on Earth, except it's methane raining down from the orange clouds. So cool.

Is there life? Seems hard to imagine, but every year we find life on Earth in the strangest of places - super heated volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean; 6 miles below ground deep in the bedrock; way, way high in the sky, floating bacteria living forever in the clouds. Life is everywhere on Earth, and it seems it has always been so - evidence of life now goes back to just a few hundred million years after the creation of Earth as we know it - which is not the original Earth, not by many iterations.

Perhaps some form of life similar to life on Earth exists on Titan. Or perhaps a life unlike life on Earth exists on Titan. Or, more likely, life does not exist on Titan, at least not on the surface. It is possible Titan has a vast underground ocean of warm liquid water, and imagine what kind of sealife might evolve there. Gnarly stuff, like everything in the ocean. One day we'll find out - we need to send out the bots in our name.