Space Pictures This Week: Sunrise From Space, Saturn After Dark

Sunrise From Space

Photograph courtesy NASA

One of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the International Space Station snapped this photo of the sun rising over the South Pacific Ocean. (See more pictures of the International Space Station.)

Taken between 4 and 5 a.m. on May 5, the Earth-orbiting spacecraft with a crew of six was hovering a few hundred miles east of Easter Island.

Published May 11, 2013

Plume of Ash

Image courtesy Robert Simmon/USGS/NASA

Ash spews out of the erupting Paluweh volcano in Indonesia on April 29, in this image captured by the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite. (Related video: “Volcanoes 101.”)

The five-mile-wide volcanic island was spotted by the satellite as it flew over the Flores Sea (map), capturing both a natural-color shot (pictured), as well as an infrared image.

The infrared sensor revealed a hot spot where lava was oozing near the top of the volcano and also indicated that ash pouring out of the volcano was much cooler in temperature than the ocean’s surface below.

Published May 11, 2013

Invisible Ring

Illustration courtesy JHUAPL/NASA

This artist’s conception, released by NASA, shows Saturn’s embedded “ring current,” made up of an invisible ring of energetic ions trapped in the planet’s magnetic field.

The electrically charged, doughnut-shaped field of particles surrounding Saturn and its rings is mapped out here using data from the Cassini-Huygens mission. Saturn is pictured in the center, with the red ring representing the distribution of dense neutral gas outside of the planet’s icy rings.

Also known as a plasma sheet, the magnetic field—imagined here in yellow and green—acts like a magnet and traps these particles in Saturn’s system, much like the magnetic fields that surround Earth. (Related: “Hidden Portals in Earth’s Magnetic Field.”)

Published May 11, 2013

Saturn After Dark

Image courtesy SSI/Caltech/NASA

A lack of atmosphere to scatter light makes Saturn’s shadow upon its rings much darker than shadows seen on Earth, as evidenced in this striking image released by NASA’sCassini spacecraft May 6.

Taken about 891,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Saturn, this view looks toward the unilluminated side of the planet’s rings—about 47 degrees below the plane of Saturn’s rings. (Related: “Saturn’s Rings Hit by Meteor Shower.”)

Published May 11, 2013

See More of Our Favorite Space Pictures

Image courtesy Schneider/André/Könyves, ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE

Published May 11, 2013