Where In The Universe #59

By Nancy Atkinson - June 25, 2009 07:44 AM UTC | Cosmology

Here's this week's image for the WITU Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know the drill: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. We'll provide the image today, but won't reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

If you missed the answer to last week's WITU Challenge,

find it here.

Look back at all previous 58 Where In the Universe Challenges.

UPDATE:

The answer has now been posted below.

This is a false-color image of our own Moon, and specificially of Mare Tranquilitatis (Sea of Tranquility) and Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity, or Sea of Peacefullness). As hal9000 so presciently said in the comments (hal, are you becoming sentient?) this image was taken Galileo spacecraft on December 8, 1992, during Galileo's second Earth/Moon flyby on its way to Jupiter.

Here's a larger version of this image.

Of course, the Sea of Tranquility is well known as being the landing site of Apollo 11 (40th anniversary this year, in case you haven't heard!) and the Sea of Serenity is the landing site for both Luna 21 and Apollo 17.

Check back next week for another WITU Challenge!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com