Space is an interesting place, but it can be hard to wrap your head around some of those out-of-this-world concepts. So what better way to learn facts about space than with GIFs? Here are six interesting and educational GIFs made from videos by Dr James O'Donoghue, a planetary scientist based at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Enjoy learning, space cadets. Want to learn more? Check out this article about how the new Mac Pro isn't good at grating cheese.
neptune
Via NASA
Via NASA:
wo hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. Most of Neptune's atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium, which is invisible.Neptune's blue color therefore comes from smaller amounts of atmospheric methane, which preferentially absorbs red light. Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System, with gusts reaching 2000 kilometers per hour. Speculation holds that diamonds may be created in the dense hot conditions that exist under the cloud tops of Uranus and Neptune. Twenty-six years later,NASA's New Horizons is poised to be the first spacecraft to zoom past Pluto this July.
Via NASA
Via NASA:
wo hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. Most of Neptune's atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium, which is invisible.Neptune's blue color therefore comes from smaller amounts of atmospheric methane, which preferentially absorbs red light. Neptune has the fastest winds in the Solar System, with gusts reaching 2000 kilometers per hour. Speculation holds that diamonds may be created in the dense hot conditions that exist under the cloud tops of Uranus and Neptune. Twenty-six years later,NASA's New Horizons is poised to be the first spacecraft to zoom past Pluto this July.
By Unknown
Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune. A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter with the solar system's most distant gas giant planet. But looking through the Voyager 2 data 20 years later, amateur image processor and philosophy professor Ted Stryk discovered something no one had recognized before — images that show the shadow of Despina in transit across Neptune's blue cloud tops.
By Unknown
Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune. A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter with the solar system's most distant gas giant planet. But looking through the Voyager 2 data 20 years later, amateur image processor and philosophy professor Ted Stryk discovered something no one had recognized before — images that show the shadow of Despina in transit across Neptune's blue cloud tops.
