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Where In the Universe #33

by Nancy Atkinson on December 10, 2008

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Here’s your image for this week’s “Where In The Universe” challenge. Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from, and also guess what exactly this image is — there are a few different features here — just what are they? Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. The image will be posted today, but we won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. Post your guess in the comment section, and then check back tomorrow and see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE (12/12): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

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This is an image of springtime clouds over a crater on Mars, taken by the Mars Odyssey Themis (Thermal Emission Imaging System). Here’s the link to the THEMIS page for more information.

Thanks for being more discreet in adding your guesses in the comment section (no one put any links this time!) The readers don’t have to name their sources! Thanks for playing, and I hope you’ll play again next week!

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About

Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

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  • http://www.myspace.com/metadox Lord Metadox

    I believe this might be clouds going across the atmosphere of Neptune near a storm system on the planet.

  • Jennifer

    maybe a dust storm or clouds passing over a crater on Mars??

  • Elias

    I think its earth or mars, these must be sund dunes over mars or clouds over earth, and i will bet on earth. Maby the crater in the USA? Arizona i think

  • NickM

    To point the obvious out again, why not suspend comment publishing until the answer is revealed. Those such as Martin take pleasure in ruining the quiz.

  • alfamonaro

    At first I had noo clue, it looks like a photo of a mould! The though of a gigantic mould is kinda fun, but i digress i’d say its a crater under what looks like clouds although maybe it’s burried under dunes, so prime candidates in my mind would be either the earth or mars…

  • Mark

    I believe this is an image of cloud wakes over the South Orkney Islands near the Antarctic Circle/South Atlantic.

  • Astrofiend

    Crater with dunes in it, and the cloud is definitely affected by the presence of the crater which would be unlikely for anything bar a high altitude volcanic crater on Earth.

    I’m going cloud over Martian crater.

    The quality and res of the image seems somewhat poor for a highly modern craft – I’m going waaay back and claiming VIKING took the image in question!!!

    So there it is – Martian crater with Viking.

  • Astrofiend

    Viking orbiter obviously, not the lander!

  • http://www.galacticimages.com John Chumack

    Looks like the cloud patterns & surface of Titan!

  • Vino

    If thats a cloud cover that rules out everything other than Earth and Mars….So i am going with a crater in Mars..

  • Vincent

    A wild guess – earth and it’s a satellite’s view of the shock waves in the upper atmospehere resulting from a solar eclipse. Maybe in infra-red?

  • Martin

    I’m really sorry if I spoilt anything by giving a reference but most people seem to be more than happy to post their own answers without any regard to other comments made.

    I gave the reference to support my answer (which might be wrong). Would giving a precise answer but no reference be ok? Should I have been dishonest and pretended it was a guess? Should I say nothing if I think I know the answer?

    I think it’s a lovely picture whatever it is!

  • Mr. Obvious

    Martin, you are being dishonest now. You didn’t know what it was until you started browsing through picture archives.
    If you really knew about this picture, instead of giving us the gratuitous picture facts, you would have given us a story about the series of images this came with, and perhaps some other known facts which arent given as media releases.
    You might be able to fool the ignorant, but you can’t fool the professionals or dedicated hobbyists.

  • Dawnelle

    Mars’ big volcano (i forget the name)

    taken through one of their dust storms? (or rust storms) lol

    Neptune idea would work too except for I don’t believe we’ve taken close enough photos to show old volcanos there?

    I’ll check back

  • 1smartkid

    it looks like a fishs skin!!!!! Am i right?yes i am;)

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