Jupiter, Saturn, Hole and HD Earth

Okay people we have a lot to cover today so lets get started, not really but I've always wanted to say that. My power engineering teacher said that a few nights back, I thought at my age I'd never hear those dreaded words again, you know your teacher would rush in to the class with a bunch of books under their arm and say those words and you'd be thinking crap, brain already full.

The image above is my first attempt at Jupiter taken last year. You can see Europa off to the right. Jupiter is the 5th. planet from the Sun, takes 11 years to orbit the Sun and has 63 confirmed moons. Jupiter is our largest planet, has 2.5 times the mass as all the other planets combined, Jupiter is made up mostly of gases with a rocky core.

The image below is my first attempt at Saturn taken last year as well. That is exactly what you'd see looking through an amateur telescope, beautiful. Saturn is the only planet that would float in water because it is made up of gases, no rocky core. It is the 6th. planet out from our Sun and takes around 29 years to complete one orbit. Saturn has 60 confirmed moons. In the image you can see 3 of Saturn's moons, starting from the closest moon from Saturn going out they are, Dione , Titan , Iapetus. I will post updates when I take more images with newer better equipment when the weather allows, looks like April, we have a long cold winter here and it seems to be starting early.


The Mars Odyssey Spacecraft acouple weeks back had discovered entrances to several possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano Arsia Mons, below is a close up of one of the caves, now they are saying and I quote, "Martian Caves are interesting not only for their geology but as possible habitats for future human colonists" I posted a picture below of the cave and of the habitat that was in the film Race To Mars , where would you want to live? The hole looks deep and dark, probably where the aliens are hiding, where as the habitat doesn't have aliens or things that bite, oh and has a big screen TV, probably High Definition, I vote the habitat.

I can see it all now, NASA sends a group of terraformer Scientists with hoes and rakes, and first aid kits with flare guns, not a real gun between them, one of them goes to investigate the caves by themselves, doesn't come back, another scientist without a gun goes to look for the first one, that one doesn't come back, you get my drift, the aliens pick them off one by one. Scientists need to watch more scary sci fi shows.

The Japanese satellite Kaguya on its way to the Moon has taken the first High Definition video of Earth from beyond it's orbit, 68,350 miles to be exact. The video has not been released yet but a still image (below) has, you can see the western coast of South America in the image. I'm looking forward to more High Def stuff from this satellite.