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Jupiter and its moons--through an iPhone camera

The fact that an amateur astronomer named Mike Weasner was able to take a photograph of Jupiter and its moons is hardly something worth a mention on Crave, but the fact that he did it with his iPhone camera is rather remarkable.

When Moons and Rings Collide

This is absolutely astounding! The Cassini spacecraft captured a collision between Saturn's moon Prometheus and the F ring, which creates a "streamer;" material being pulled from the ring by the moon's gravity, leaving behind a dark channel. There's even a movie of the event! The creation of these streamers and channels occurs in a cycle that repeats during each of Prometheus' orbits. During its 14.7 hour orbit of Saturn, when Prometheus reaches apoapse, or where it is farthest away from Saturn and closest to the F ring, the oblong moon draws a streamer of material from the ring. But since Prometheus orbits faster than the material in the ring, this new streamer is pulled from a different location in the ring about 3.2 degrees (in longitude) ahead of the previous one.

Space Spotlight: Pics of moons, Mars & more

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Mars' Scars Are Remnants from Impact with Third Moon

About a billion years ago, there was a pair of small moons revolving each other in close orbit with Mars. One of them, Phobos, is still performing its regular cyclic patrols around the red planet, but the other, as experts believe, has broken into pieces, entered the atmosphere, and eventually smashed on Mars' surface, leaving behind a couple of large craters. Predictions have it that, millions of years into the future, the surviving moon will follow the example.

Astrophotography of Jupiter with an iPhone

An expert amateur astronomer in Arizona has captured a terrific photo of Jupiter and its Galilean moons with an Apple iPhone and a Meade catadioptric telescope.

Plumes spewing from Saturn moon may contain water

Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.

Saturn moon's plumes may hold water

WASHINGTON — Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.

Planet wobbles could reveal Earth 2.0

Almost all the 30 known exoplanets that sit within the habitable zone of their stars are gas giants. "But they might have rocky, possibly Earth-like moons," says David Kipping of University College London.

Plumes spewing from Saturn moon may contain water

This file image provided by NASA on Oct. 10, 2007, shows geyser-like eruptions of ice particles and water vapor shooting out from the south pole of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life. (AP Photo/NASA, file)

Earth's 10 Most Impressive Impact Craters

Ever since our recent encounter with asteroid 2008 TC3 — the first asteroid that was correctly predicted to hit our planet — I've had impact craters on the brain. Earth has about 175 known impact craters, but surely our planet has endured more bashing than that in its history. All the other terrestrial planets and moons in our solar system are covered by impact craters. Just look at our Moon through a telescope or binoculars, or check out the recent images of Mercury sent back by the MESSENGER spacecraft, or pictures of Mars from the armada of spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet, and you'll see that impact craters are the most common landforms in our solar system. But since two-thirds of Earth is covered by water, any asteroid impacts occurring in the oceans are difficult to find.

New "Juno" Mission To Jupiter Announced

Riding with Robots writes "Today NASA announced it is officially proceeding with the Juno robotic mission to Jupiter. Scheduled to launch in August 2011 and reach the largest planet in 2016, the spacecraft will orbit the planet 32 times, skimming about 4,800 kilometers over the planet's cloud tops for about a year. The mission will focus on Jupiter's structure and evolution, and not on Europa or the other icy moons that may hide oceans under their surfaces — a disappointment if you ask me. Then again, all planetary missions so far have turned up amazing images and surprising scientific discoveries, and I doubt this expedition will be any different." We discussed NASA's deliberation of its short list a few days back.

The Greatest Scientific Hoaxes?

Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced b

Evolving Rocks

SpaceAdmiral notes a new study making the claim that rocks have been evolving throughout Earth's history. "'Mineral evolution is obviously different from Darwinian evolution — minerals don't mutate, reproduce or compete like living organisms,' said Hazen in a statement announcing the study's findings. 'But we found both the variety and relative abundances of minerals have changed dramatically over more than 4.5 billion years of Earth's history. For at least 2.5 billion years, and possibly since the emergence of life, Earth's mineralogy has evolved in parallel with biology,' Hazen added. 'One implication of this finding is that remote observations of the mineralogy of other moons and planets may provide crucial evidence for biological influences beyond Earth.

First Trek Film Footage Unveiled

Ostracus writes "Lost creator JJ Abrams has unveiled footage from his Star Trek prequel at a press event in London. The clips featured US actor Chris Pine as the young Captain Kirk, Heroes star Zachary Quinto as Mr Spock and Simon Pegg as Enterprise engineer Scotty. The audience also saw Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as the older Mr Spock in one of four excerpts from the film. In his introduction, Abrams said he wanted the film to be released in May 2009, to feel 'legitimate and real.' Speaking at London's Vue West End cinema on Tuesday morning, the film-maker admitted he had 'never really been a huge Star Trek fan.'" Note that the article doesn't actually contain the footage, just brief descriptions of it. The video clip included is just the old trailer that we saw many moons ago.

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