Category: Where In the Universe?

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here’s #128! 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 responsible for the image. As usual, we’ll 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. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: Answer now published below!

This is Saturn’s F-ring, as seen by Voyager 1 on November 12, 1980. Of course we have better, higher resolution images of the F-ring from Cassini, but this was our first close-up glimpse of this strange, two-strand braided rings. Voyager 1 took the image at a distance of about 750,000 km.

See more images from the Voyager mission at this link from NASA.

Check back next week for another test of your visual knowledge of the cosmos!

It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Name where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the telescope or spacecraft responsible for the image. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below:

This is Mars, as seen by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It is sandfalls in the north polar region of the planet. This image was part of the new PDS release this week. You can see a color version and get more info on this image at this link on the HiRISE website.

And you can now find the answer to last week’s WITU challenge (which was of the image below) back at the original post (sorry for the delay in posting the answer!)

Here’s this week’s image for the Where In The Universe Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: 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 or instrument responsible for the image. We’ll 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. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

And happy Thanksgiving to everyone who will be celebrating on Thursday.

UPDATE: Answer now posted below.

No photoshopping here, there really is a dark “X”-shape silhoutted against the nucleus of this galaxy, M51. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, the “X” is due to absorption by dust and this X really does mark the spot. It marks the exact position of a black hole which may have a mass equivalent to one-million stars like the sun.

This may be the first direct view of an immense ring of dust which fuels a massive black hole at the heart of M51, located 20 million light-years away. The darkest bar may be an edge-on dust ring which is 100 light-years in diameter. Surprisingly, astronomers found that the ring is standing almost perpendicularly to the relatively flat spiral galaxy, like a top spinning on its side with respect to the floor. Even more surprising is the discovery of a secondary ring or dust lane which is contrary to all expectations.

You can read more about this image of M51 at the HubbleSite.

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here’s #125! 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 tomorrow. 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: Answer now posted below.

This is one of Saturn’s moons, Calypso, and the image was taken in February 2010.

Calypso is shaped pretty strangely for a moon, and it is one of two Trojan moons of the larger moon Tethys — the other is Telesto. Calypso trails Tethys in its orbit by 60 degrees. Like Telesto, Calypso’s smooth surface does not appear to retain the record of intense cratering that most of Saturn’s other moons have.

This view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Calypso (21 kilometers, or 13 miles across).

See more about his image at the Cassini website.

It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Name where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the telescope or spacecraft responsible for the image. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

And you can find the answer to last week’s WITU challenge here. (and no, it was not the view out the back window of the Enterprise as it Warps away from Kahn as he detonates the Genesis device — and neither is this one!)

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted (finally — sorry!)

This is one of the first images taken by the Very Large Telescope’s Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera (ISAAC) instrument, way back in 1998. It is an infrared color composite of the quadruply lensed quasar system MG0414+0534. At the center is galaxy at redshift z = 0.96 which is responsible for the four (of which two are not completely resolved) gravitationally lensed images of a z = 2.64 quasar plus a faint arc.

See more about the image on the ESO website.

After a small hiatus, it’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Test your visual knowledge of the cosmos by naming where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft/telescope responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has been posted below.

This is an image of NGC 6240 that contains X-ray data from Chandra (shown in red, orange, and yellow) combined with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2002, the discovery of two merging black holes was announced based on Chandra data in this galaxy. The two black holes are a mere 3,000 light years apart and are seen as the bright point-like sources in the middle of the image.

For more information about this image, see the Chandra website.

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here’s #122! 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 tomorrow. 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. (Some folks have been messing that up lately — let’s get it right, people!!)

UPDATE: Answer now posted below.

As some of you guessed (knew!) this is phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Argentina in early February 2010, which colors the Atlantic Ocean’s waters blue-green. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite is the instrument and spacecraft responsible for this image. See the full image and more information at the NASA Earth Observatory website.

It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. This awesome image was sent in by UT reader Paul Nadolny. Name where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name exactly what all the different objects are in the image, as well as what instrument is responsible. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below.

You all are pretty sharp! Paul and I both thought looked like a star hovering over Earth’s limb. But actually, this is Saturn’s limb, with the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, hanging above the horizon. Both Alpha Centauri A and B—stars very similar to our own—are clearly distinguishable in this image, which was taken by the Cassini spacecraft.

This image is part of a stellar occultation sequence, during which Cassini watches as a star (or stars) as it passes behind Saturn. Light from the stars is attenuated by the uppermost reaches of Saturn’s gaseous envelope, revealing information about the structure and composition of the planet’s atmosphere.

The view was captured from about 66 degrees above the ringplane and faces southward on Saturn. Ring shadows mask the planet’s northern latitudes at bottom.

Thanks again to Paul Nadolny for submitting this image. If you have an image you’d like to submit to try and stump everyone, send an email to Nancy.

See this JPL Photojournal page for more information.

Here’s this week’s image for the Where In The Universe Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: 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 or instrument responsible for the image. We’ll 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. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: Answer is now posted below:

This dusty little galaxy is the Small Magellanic Cloud, as seen in infrared, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. In this image you can see stars and dust that haven’t been visible before Spitzer’s infrared eyes took a glance. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away.

For more info on this image, see the Spitzer website.