Category: Where In the Universe?

Here’s your image for this week’s “Where In The Universe” challenge. Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from, and also guess what exactly this image is — there are a few different features here — just what are they? Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. The image will be posted today, but we won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. Post your guess in the comment section, and then check back tomorrow and see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE (12/12): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

This is an image of springtime clouds over a crater on Mars, taken by the Mars Odyssey Themis (Thermal Emission Imaging System). Here’s the link to the THEMIS page for more information.

Thanks for being more discreet in adding your guesses in the comment section (no one put any links this time!) The readers don’t have to name their sources! Thanks for playing, and I hope you’ll play again next week!

Are you ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Take a look at the image above 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. 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 — if you dare! Check back tomorrow on this same post to see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE (12/4): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

A variety of guesses this week, but many answers were correct: Saturn’s moon Iapetus. The Cassini spacraft zoomed in on the cratered moon to provide this stunning close-up. And did you know you can golf the moons of Saturn? The Cassini scientists created a Flash-based game based on some of the best images from the spacecraft’s tour of Saturn and its moons. It’s called Golf Sector 6, and its pretty fun. As many of you mentioned, this image shows the equatorial bulge of Iapetus, with mountainous terrain reaching about 10 km in height. Above the middle of the image can be seen a place where an impact has exposed the bright ice beneath the dark overlying material.

The image was taken on 10 September 2007 with the Cassini’s narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 3870 km from Iapetus. Image scale is 23 m per pixel. Credits: NASA/ JPL/ Space Science Institute.

And you know-it-alls out there don’t have to provide links to images or videos in your guesses! Give everyone the equal chance to play, please!

Tune in again 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 (or some extra Thanksgiving turkey if you live in the US) if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. Make your guess and post a comment if you’re brave enough. I’ll try to post the answer tomorrow, depending how busy I am with the holiday festivities, so check back sometime Thursday to find the answer and see how you did. Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE (11/27): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

Well, the guesses posted by readers in the comments ranged from various places around the solar system, but the most frequent answer is the correct one: the Cydonia region on Mars, taken by ESA’s Mars Express. Cydonia is located in the Arabia Terra region on Mars, between the southern highlands and the northern plains of Mars. The area has several mounds of various shapes and sizes. Some over-enthusiastic folks looking at the first image of this region from NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter (1976) could see “pyramids” and a face. The “Face on Mars” can be seen in the lower right hand corner of the image above.

And here is another view of the “Face” from Mars Express. Looks more like an interesting hill, and not at all like a face.

Take a look at some more images of the region from Mars Express here.

Thanks for participating in this week’s WITU Challenge, and be sure to play again next week!

It’s time once again for the Where In The Universe Challenge. Hard to believe we’ve done thirty of these already, and our readers are getting really good at this. The goal of the WITU challenge is to test your skills and visual knowledge of our universe. Guess where this image is from, and give yourself extra points if you can guess which spacecraft is responsible for the image. Mull over the image, make your guess and post a comment if you’re brave enough. Check back tomorrow at this same post to find the answer and see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE (11/20): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

Again, nice job everyone! Yes, this is the surface of Venus, taken by the Venera 9 lander before it quickly succumbed to the heat and pressure of the planet. From June to October 1975, the Russian space probe Venera 9 became the first craft to orbit, land on, and photograph Venus. Venera 9 consisted of two main parts that separated in orbit, an orbiter and a lander. The 5,070-pound (2,300-kilogram) orbiter relayed communication and photographed the planet in ultraviolet light. The lander entered the Venusian atmosphere using a series of parachutes and employed a special panoramic photometer to produce 180-degree panoramic photos of the surface of the planet.

Great job! Come back again for next week’s WITU Challenge.

Source: National Geographic

Here’s this week’s “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. The new way we’re doing this challenge is that 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 — if you dare! Check back tomorrow on this same post to see how you did. Good luck!

UPDATE (11/3): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

Nice job on this one, everyone. Yes, its the sun. This image was taken back in July of 2002 of an active region of the sun. The image was produced by the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope on the island of La Palma, Spain. (I apologize, obviously that’s not a “spacecraft” and I should not have used the word “spacecraft” in the above paragraph — habits are hard to break.) These aren’t just little bumps on the sun. The structures in the dark sunspots in the upper central area of the image show distinct elevation above the dark “floor” of the sunspot. The height of the structures has been estimated by astronomers to be between 200 and 450 km, and the smallest resolvable features in the image are about 70 km in size! Wow!

I actually saw this image first on the Boston Globe’s The Big Picture, but here’s the original press release and info on this great image of the sun.

Here’s your image for this week’s “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. The new way we’re doing this challenge is that 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 — if you dare. Check back tomorrow on this same post (reminder: no new post tomorrow — come back to this one) to see how you did!

UPDATE (11/6): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!


I have to say, I am impressed with the knowledge of you UT readers! Great job! Yes, it is Tycho’s Supernova Remnant, taken by the Chandra spacecraft. This is a bubble of hot gaseous supernova debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high-energy electrons (blue). These features were created as the supersonic expansion of the debris into interstellar gas produced two shock waves – one that moves outward and accelerates particles to high energies, and another that moves backward and heats the stellar debris. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, took this image in 2005.

Learn more about the image here.

And I’m sorry about the delay in posting the answer.

Here’s the latest image for the “Where In The Universe” challenge. Take a look at the image and try your hand at guessing where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points (or a cookie) if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. The new way we’re doing this challenge is that we’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives everyone a chance to mull over the image and provide their answer in the comment section. Check back tomorrow to see how you did!

UPDATE (10/30): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!! From now on, the answers will be given in the same post instead of a new one…so you need to come back and check the original to find out the answer!

Are all your guesses in? It’s now time to reveal the answer to this week’s challenge. This image comes from the STS-115 space shuttle mission in September 2006. Crew members spotted an unidentified object floating away from the shuttle. No one ever really figured out what it was, but it was believed to be debris that floated out of the shuttle’s payload bay. The image was taken by astronaut Daniel Burbank onboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis (here’s the original). It caused a little stir because earlier in the day, the crew recorded a video shot of another object tumbling away from the shuttle.

How did you do?

Some of you had the right answer — great job! The other answers? Well, I commend some of you for your creativity! Come back for another WITU Challenge next week!

Here’s the image for this week’s “Where In The Universe” challenge. And, like last week, we’ll provide the image, but won’t reveal the answer right away. This gives everyone a chance to mull over the image and provide their answer in the comment section. But check back tomorrow for the answer and to see how you did. Again, here’s the procedure: Take a look at the image above and try to determine where in the universe this image was taken. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for taking this image. Post your answers in the comments (if you’re brave enough!) and check back tomorrow for the answer. Good luck!

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

As the majority of the commenters said, this is Neptune’s moon Triton, taken by Voyager 2. In the summer of 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe the planet Neptune, its final planetary target. Passing about 4,950 kilometers (3,000 miles) above Neptune’s north pole, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to any planet since leaving Earth 12 years earlier. Five hours later, Voyager 2 passed about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, the last solid body the spacecraft will have an opportunity to study.

Good job, everyone!

Here’s the answer for this week’s Where In The Universe Challenge. And okay, okay, almost everyone proved they’ve been keeping up on current events. And UT readers are definitely getting to know HiRISE images almost on sight. So congrats if you said a HiRISE image. I’m really proud of all of you! So, just what is in this image? Ian wrote about it here last week. This is terrain near the north pole on Mars, probably not all that far away from the little Phoenix lander . The bright patch of material is ice, which might have been deposited in the previous winter. Here’s the explanation from the HiRISE site:

“After ice in the form of surface frost is deposited from the atmosphere, it experiences changes throughout the Martian year. Some of the ice has a polygonal texture which probably formed when temperature variations created stress and cracks in the ice.

The dark features scattered throughout the scene are dunes. The streaks emanating from the dunes trending in the southwest direction indicate the dominant direction of the wind in recent times.”

So great job, to all of our wonderful and knowledgeable UT readers who got it right. I’ll try to make it a little more challenging next week. For those of you who guessed wrong, just keep trying; there will be lots of chances to get some right. As my uncle used to say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile.

How did everyone like this new format, where we pose the challenge one day and provide the answer the next?

Here’s the image for this week’s “Where In The Universe” challenge. But we’re going to try something different this time. Several readers have suggested (and maybe even begged) that we don’t reveal the answer right away, but allow everyone a chance to mull over the image and provide their answer in the comment section. Then tomorrow, I’ll post the answer and you can see how you did. So here you go: Take a look at the image above and try to determine where in the universe this image was taken. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for taking this image. Post your answers in the comments (if you’re brave enough!) and check back tomorrow for the answer. Good luck!