Pictures Of The Day 2 - February 1, 2019 - (very Late Post)

Twin Sunset

Picture of the Day 2 - October 22,2018

Two sun’s setting viewed from planetary orbit.

MESSENGER Spacecraft 

MESSENGER (whose backronym is Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, and which is a reference to the Roman mythological messenger, Mercury) was a NASA robotic spacecraft that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field.

The instruments carried by MESSENGER were used on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury using minimal fuel. During its first flyby of Mercury in January 2008, MESSENGER became the second mission after Mariner 10’s 1975 flyby to reach Mercury.

MESSENGER entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, becoming the first spacecraft to do so. It successfully completed its primary mission in 2012. Following two mission extensions, the MESSENGER spacecraft used the last of its maneuvering propellant and deorbited as planned, impacting the surface of Mercury on April 30, 2015

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Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

O’Sirus System - Post 1 (Hellish Moon)

We have gone deeper in the Triangulum Galaxy.  We are now only 1,473 light years from the NGC 604 Nebula. Our next system is the O’Sirus System, a dim Orange Dwarf orbited by 12 planets, including 1 world that supports life.

The lone satellite orbiting the third planet.  Roughly a third of Earth’s mass with a super-heated water vapor atmosphere. Atmospheric temperatures reach up to 1,000 K (1,340 °F), and glowing clouds of Titanium Dioxide hoover over the moon. The sun is only a K9V type star, but at only 0.11 AU, it covers an area of the sky 7.5 times larger than a Full Moon on Earth.

Space Engine System ID: RS 1229-171-8-11850488-229

High Resolution Pics

Picture 1 - Volcanic moon with glowing metallic clouds.

Picture 2 - Atmospheric Haze

Picture 3 - The Surface

Picture 4 - Lunar Sky

Picture 5 - Eclipse

Picture of the day 2 - November 28, 2018

Cratered surface of a small burnt dwarf planet. Fissures run through the surface from the core cooling and the crust shrinking.

Triangulum Log - Post 4 - Vista System (Planet 2)

Here we come across the system’s second planet, a warm desert world. This rocky world orbits 0.41 AU from the sun and has a mass roughly one fifth that of Earth. It is a hot world covered in a thin Carbon Dioxide/ Sulfur Dioxide atmosphere with one tenth the atmospheric pressure of Earth. The planet is tidally locked to the sun and has an average surface temperature of 231° F on the day-side.

High Resolution Pics

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Picture of the Day - February 5, 2019 - (Very late post)

I've decided to travel back home in Space Engine.

Earth and the Moon.

Picture of the Day - December 30, 2018

Globular cluster. Almost 10,000 stars packed into a sphere just 100 light years across.

A collection of alien skies from another system I have come across in the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

Space Engine System ID: RS 8475-7-7-32-196

High Resolution Pictures

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Picture of the day - December 7, 2018

Insight B-VI viewed from the surface of its 4th moon.