We Caught It! Gigantic Storm Erupts in Saturn’s Northern Hemisphere

Looks like someone is just starting to pour cream in their coffee.

–Ben
===============
December 27, 2010

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Just down on the ground today … our cameras on Cassini have captured sight of a gigantic storm recently erupted in the northern hemisphere of Saturn. This storm had been sighted by the amateurs in recent weeks, but Cassini was finally in a position to take a splendid series of pictures of it. And what a storm it is!

Visit …

http://www.ciclops.org/view_event/152/Saturn_Storm_Rev_142_Raw_Preview?js=1

… and see two raw (unprocessed) images taken in visible (blue) light and in the near-infrared.

It only goes to show: It pays to have a sophisticated observatory in orbit around Saturn.

Enjoy!

Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team Leader
Director, CICLOPS
Space Science Institute
Boulder, CO

http://ciclops.org

http://twitter.com/carolynporco

http://www.facebook.com/carolynporco

IceCube Neutrino Observatory completed

Cool!
—Ben

Construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory was completed at the the South Pole in Antarctica on December 18, 2010 New Zealand time. This scientific milestone marks completion of the world’s largest neutrino detector and a powerful tool for exploring the Universe…

http://icecube.wisc.edu/complete.php

Cassini Marks Holidays with Dramatic Views of Saturn’s Moon Rhea

Happy holidays from Snowy MN.
–Ben
=======================
Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In celebration of the holidays, and to mark the end of another fabulous year in orbit around Saturn, the Cassini imaging team is releasing today some very high resolution views of Saturn’s moon Rhea, including a 3D look at a tectonically fractured region showing cracks as deep as 2.5 miles. Get your red/blue glasses out for this one!

Go to …

ciclops.org

… to check it all out.

Also images acquired during today’s very close flyby of the northern hemisphere of Enceladus will be posted on the CICLOPS website today or tomorrow. Among other images, we expect some interesting views of the jets that erupt from Enceladus’ south polar fractures, so be on the lookout for those.

Finally, we here at CICLOPS, and the members of the Cassini imaging team, wish you and yours a very happy and healthy holiday season and a spectacular New Year!

Enjoy!

Carolyn Porco
Cassini Imaging Team Leader
Director, CICLOPS
Space Science Institute
Boulder, CO

http://ciclops.org

http://twitter.com/carolynporco

http://www.facebook.com/carolynporco

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets

More armchair astronomy to do.
==Ben

Citizen Scientists Join Search for Earth-like Planets

Web users around the globe will be able to help professional astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets thanks to a new online citizen science project called Planet Hunters that launches December 16 at

http://www.planethunters.org

Planet Hunters, which is the latest in the Zooniverse citizen science project collection, will ask users to help analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission. The space telescope has been searching for planets beyond our own solar system — called exoplanets — since its launch in March 2009…

http://www.onorbit.com/node/2728

Vote for the Most Inspiring Astronomical Photo of the Year

Most I had seen in a lot of places before but a few were new.

Eventually I voted for ‘Enceladus and its Plumes’
Cause I hadn’t seen anything quite like it in previous years.

So what is your favorite and why?

–Ben
==========
Vote for the Most Inspiring Astronomical Photo of the Year
16 December, 2010

The time has come to vote! Thank you for all your suggestions; many have made it onto the shortlist. If looking at these images teaches me anything, it is that the study of the heavens enriches us culturally as well as scientifically. Each one of these images is a work of art. You do not need to understand what you are looking at, to be moved by it…

…You’ll have until Friday 31st to vote. Please encourage your Twitter followers, Facebook fans and blog readers to vote as well! Also, feel free to post in the comments why you voted as you did; I’d love to hear your reactions. Let’s have some fun with it and if it works well, we can do it all again next year! Season’s greetings to you all.

These images have all been released for the first time during 2010 from publicly funded observatories, space agencies and organizations…

http://www.stuartclark.com/astronomy/1-latest-news/437-vote-for-the-most-inspiring-astronomical-photo-of-the-year