People Forget That “within The Habitable Zone” Means Habitable For Us And ‘life As We Know It.’

ESA Rosetta has just released this marvelous video clip of 3 images,18 minutes apart, of a spectacular outburst on Comet 67P. This is what happens when comets, in their orbits around the Sun, start getting close enough for the ices they are made of to warm, turn to vapor, and erupt from below the dark, encrusted surface to form a jet, often entraining icy and rocky particles in the process.

It is the growing number and strength of such jets that form as the comet nears the Sun that produce the magnificent tails that can stretch long and mythical across the night skies of Earth.

And here, you are witnessing the process from its beginnings.

Hosanna to Comet 67P!

ESA: Outburst in action

New day, new series of photos. I’m going to try to blog about the planets of the Solar System; First up is Mercury, which is the smallest and innermost planet. With a diameter ~4878km, it is smaller than some of the moons in the Solar System. The small planet in a 3:2 resonance with the sun, giving it a unique position where a single day takes 2 Mercurian years. It has the smallest tilt of any planet in the Solar System at just 1/30 of a degree.

Keep reading

Ham radio operator taking part in a field day

(Walter B. Lane. 1946)

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as Viewed by Voyager 1 in February, 1979. The Great Red Spot is an anticyclone, three and a half times the size of Earth located in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. [1920 × 1080]

Comet Lovejoy

by Abhinav Singhai

Saturn in Infrared from Cassini

Using a shortwave radio to listen to Jupiter and the Sun. 

Radio Ham-Operator’s Field Day

(Walter B. Lane. 1946)