Where In The Universe Challenge #142

By Nancy Atkinson - March 30, 2011 at 4:09 PM UTC | Site News
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Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here's #142! Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft, telescope or instrument responsible for the image. We provide the image today, but won't reveal the answer until later. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. And Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below!

This is a "colorized" image of Venus was taken on February 14th, 1990 by the Galileo spacecraft. It was taken from a distance of almost 1.7 million miles, about 6 days after Galileo's closest approach to the planet. In order to be able to see the subtle contrasts in the clouds in Venus' upper atmosphere, scientists colorized to a bluish hue, as well as to indicate that it was taken through a UV filter.

This image shows the east-to-west-trending cloud banding, and scientists estimate the winds that flow from east to west are gusting at about 230mph. The smallest features visible are about 45 miles across. Scientists point out an intriguing filimentary dark pattern is seen immediately left of the bright region at the subsolar point (equatorial "noon"). North is at the top and the evening terminator is to the left.

See the original image on the NSSDC Photo Gallery.

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