Category: Where In the Universe?

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 responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back 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 — don’t peek if you haven’t guessed yet!

This is Saturn’s small moon Janus, taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Here, Janus is illuminated by light from both the sun and Saturn.

This view looks toward the south pole of Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) which lies on the terminator just below the center of the image. Brightly lit terrain seen on the right is on the leading hemisphere of Janus. Light reflected off Saturn dimly lights the Saturn-facing side of Janus on the top left of the image.

Check out the Cassini website for more information about this image.

Check back next week for another WITU challenge!

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!

Are you ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? 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 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.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. Don’t peek before you guess!

It was fun to have an image that (finally!) not everyone knew at first glance. I was feeling a little nostalgic and missing the Phoenix lander, so I chose an image from that mission — which was going on and going strong a year ago.

This is a pile of Mars soil that the Phoenix lander excavated with its scoop. This pile was called “Caterpillar” and the image was taken on August 24, 2008.

The conical pile is about 10 centimeters (4 inches) tall, and was taken from several trenches that the lander dug. For more about the image, see the Phoenix gallery.

It’s Wednesday (already?!) so that means its time for another “Where In The Universe” challenge to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. This week’s image was submitted by UT reader Rob Bowman, and Rob is hoping to stump everyone this week. Try to guess/name where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. Make your guess and post a comment, but please no links to the answer. Check back sometime on Thursday to find the answer and see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below.

Rob certainly chose wisely with this image, as almost everything about the life cycle of stars is right here. This is a giant galactic nebula, NGC 3603, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board Hubble that was just returned back to Earth from the servicing mission. There is a lot going on in this image, as it captures various stages of the star life cycle in one single view. To the upper left of center is the evolved blue supergiant called Sher 25. The star has a unique circumstellar ring of glowing gas that is a galactic twin to the famous ring around the supernova 1987A.

The grayish-bluish color of the ring and the bipolar outflows (blobs to the upper right and lower left of the star) indicates the presence of processed (chemically enriched) material. Near the center of the view is a so-called starburst cluster dominated by young, hot Wolf-Rayet stars and early O-type stars.

A torrent of ionizing radiation and fast stellar winds from these massive stars has blown a large cavity around the cluster. The most spectacular evidence for the interaction of ionizing radiation with cold molecular-hydrogen cloud material are the giant gaseous pillars to the right of the cluster. These pillars are sculptured by the same physical processes as the famous pillars Hubble photographed in the M16 Eagle Nebula.

Dark clouds at the upper right are so-called Bok globules, which are probably in an earlier stage of star formation. To the lower left of the cluster are two compact, tadpole-shaped emission nebulae. Similar structures were found by Hubble in Orion, and have been interpreted as gas and dust evaporation from possibly protoplanetary disks (proplyds). This true-color picture was taken on March 5, 1999.

Thanks to Rob Bowman for submitting this image – particularly timely because of the Hubble Servicing mission that was completed last week.

Check back next week for another WITU Challenge!

Are you ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? 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 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.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. Don’t peek before you make your guess.

What you are seeing here is the dark side of Saturn’s moon Titan, with sunlight filtering through the moon’s hazy atmosphere. And obviously, the Cassini spacecraft is responsible for this image.

An airless satellite would appear in this viewing geometry only as a lit crescent. But Titan’s thick atmosphere scatters light around all edges of the planet to create a ring of light.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Titan. North on Titan is up and rotated 45 degrees to the left. The images were acquired at a distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 157 degrees. Image scale is 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel.

Nice job, everyone! Check back next week for another WITU challenge!

It’s Wednesday, so that means its time for another “Where In The Universe” challenge to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. See if you can name where in the Universe this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. Make your guess and post a comment, but please no links to the answer. Check back sometime on Thursday to find the answer and see how you did.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below.

I chose a Hubble image this week, in honor of the current Hubble Servicing Mission. This is, as many of you said, the Cartwheel Galaxy.

The Cartwheel is a ring galaxy, lying about 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. It has been tidally distorted by an encounter with another galaxy into a ring-and-hub structure.

The striking cartwheel appearance is the result of a smaller intruder galaxy having careened through the core of the larger system, which was probably once a normal spiral similar to the Milky Way. Like a pebble tossed in a lake, the collision sent a ripple of energy into space, plowing gas and dust in front of it.

Expanding at a rate of more than 300,000 km/h, this cosmic tsunami left a burst of new star creation in its wake. Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, including the one shown here, have resolved bright blue knots that are gigantic clusters of newborn stars and immense loops and bubbles blown into space by supernovae.

Sounds incredibly violent, but it sure makes a pretty picture!

Check back next week for another WITU challenge!

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 responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on Thursday 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.

Ah, yes: this is, in fact, the Tadpole galaxy, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Tadpole is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 400 million light years from Earth, located in the constellation Draco. Its “tail” is about 280 thousand light-years long.

For more info on this image, check out JPL’s Photojournal page.

Check back next week for another WITU challenge!