the-star-stuff:

“Most Powerful Storms of the Solar System”

• Great White Spot on Saturn. Credit: Carolyn Porco and CICLOPS; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
• Neptune’s Great Dark Spot. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
• Hurricane Irene Grows Ominous. Credit: NASA via Ron Garan/@Astro_Ron
• Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as Seen by Voyager. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
• Solar Prominence Sun ‘Twister’ - Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA/SDO/GSFC

jtotheizzoe:

A Solar System Across Sweden

A 1:20 million scale solar system has been built that covers the entire nation of Sweden. With different buildings and sculptures representing different planets and solar bodies, the replicas begin in Stockholm (with the Sun and inner planets) and stretch all the way to the far north town of Kiruna (the point of termination shock), 950 km away from the “Sun”.

I’ve put the names of what the above sculptures represent in the photo captions.

To see the full list of pseudo-planetary landmarks, check here. Any Swedish followers seen any of these?

cwnl:

NASA’s Next Mars Rover to Launch in 15 Days

The Mars Science Laboratory, the largest and most complex machine that has ever landed on another planet, is on target to launch on Nov. 25 at 7:25 a.m. PST.

“MSL has been assembled, tested, encapsulated, placed atop an ATLAS rocket and is ready to go,” said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA’s Mars Program, during a briefing at NASA headquarters on Nov. 10.

The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, weighs in at nearly 1 ton and is a little bigger than a Mini Cooper. The probe is expected to survey the Martian landscape with HD cameras, examine the chemical surface composition within 20 feet of the rover, monitor the planet’s weather, and search for signs of habitability and life, past or present.

Curiosity also has a six-foot arm that can reach down to place sensors on Martian rocks to investigate their chemical makeup. It will be able to drill inside rocks and deliver samples back to a suite of laboratory instruments carried inside the rover, something never done before in Mars.

“This is a Mars scientists’ dream machine,” said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL deputy project scientist, at the briefing.

A little perspective.

Happy 1st Birthday Neptune!

crookedindifference:

A mechanical planetarium, or Orrery, made by Benjamin Martin in London in 1766, used by John Winthrop to teach astronomy at Harvard, on display at the Putnam Gallery in the Harvard Science Center

I want one so bad!