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Extremely Cool Astronomy News
The Mars Global Surveyor has taken a picture of Earth from Mars. Even cooler, it got Jupiter into the same picture. You can check it out at the original site --http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/ -- but that might be bogged down because it was posted to slashdot.org and lots of geeks are looking at it. The slashdot story can be found at http://science.slashdot.org/science/...d=134&tid=160. The original picture has been posted on a mirror at http://www.dpk.net/earth_jupiter_100.jpg where it's much easier to access.
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Umm, Taz is a little confused. (not an uncommon occurance) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif
Isn't the Mars BETWEEN the Earth and Jupitor? So how can you get a picture of BOTH without the sun in between? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif |
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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">
S E...... ........... angle of pic .......M ........... J..... </pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">S = Sun E = Earth M = Mars J = Jupiter Each planet is at a different radius from the sun but they can be at different points in the orbit. Crude graphics, but you get the picture (pun intended). Slick. [ May 23, 2003, 04:15: Message edited by: Slick ] |
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That makes sense slick, but it still looks wrong to me. Shouldn't the planets be side to side instead of top to bottom? I thought maybe the image was sideways, but then the shadow on earth would be wrong and the cloud bands on jupiter too.
Geoschmo |
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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">
S ....... ........E... angle of pic .......M ........... J..... </pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok people, think in 3d spacially. The visible bands on Jupiter show the "plane" of the planets (since its axis is roughly perpendicular to the plane), however the plane is not totally flat and judging by the relative sizes, earth is much closer to the camera than Jupiter and slightly higher in the plane of the planets. This gives the "above" effect. The angle I show is for illustration purposes but must in actuality be very very small - almost zero so that the earth appears almost "above" Jupiter. Slick. [ May 23, 2003, 06:34: Message edited by: Slick ] |
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Oh I get it...But perhaps more like this:
.......................................S .................E ...........................M J And picture taken sideways to the orbit like you said. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Another question how did you insert spaces? I had to use periods to space out things. [ May 23, 2003, 05:16: Message edited by: Taz-in-Space ] |
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very very cool picture
dunno if such thing exists but perharps its a curved U-shaped camera lens used there? |
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Taz, he used the [ code] UBB tags (much like url and quote tags).
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Thanks Fyron.
Taz puts on his to-do list: research UBB code tags. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif |
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As to their placement, I would suspect the following: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">. J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S . . E . . ^ . | . | . | . M</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">(The arrow denotes the direction of the camera; the periods are only to maintain vertical spacing) Mainly due to the differences in what's "lit up" and what'snot; Earth is in almost peerfect profile, turned JUST a little away form the camera -- so the Sun should be not-quite directly to the right of the Earth, in terms of direction. However, Jupiter is almost face-on to us; that means the angle from the camera to the sun, relative to Jupiter, mustn't be all THAT large. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif [ May 23, 2003, 19:44: Message edited by: Pax ] |
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My, do we live in that little blue sphere?
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Ok, if I sound skeptical, I am not at all. I have no doubt this picture is legit, I am just not thinking about it correctly to understand what I am seeing. I had forgotten the planets were in different planes, so that explains the over/under. But I still am not seeing it totally right.
From your descriptions, and from the angle of the sunlight on the planets I made this graphic. It's not to scale of course, but does it correctly represent the relationship of the planets in the photo? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1053716963.gif If it does, shouldn't Jupiter be way smaller than it is in the picture? At this angle and magnification, Jupiter should appear farther away from the camera then it does from us here on earth. And yet Jupiter from earth is just a small colored dot. Still http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Geoschmo |
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Yes, the planets would be a lot smaller than your dots.
You have it right. See the map that is essentially the same as yours at: this web page It's dots are also way off scale, as is necessary for them to be visible. Yes, Jupiter is much farther away than the Earth, but they are both very far away, so the absolute difference in size from parallax between the two isn't that great, because the effect of parallax isn't directly proportional to distance. Also, Jupiter is a lot bigger than the Earth. PvK |
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Hehe, I finally got the original site to load (very slow) and it's got more information. It has agraph of the planet positions and my diagram is almost exactly right. (Yay me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) But I still can't figure the apparent (to me anyway) size difference. The site says the images were taken seperatly and mosaized together. I wonder if the two planetary images are at different magnifications? It doesn't say they are, but that would explain it.
Geoschmo |
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So if instead of magnifying the image, we hopped in a ship and flew towards earth to the point where it's the same size as in the magnified image, Jupiter would still be a tiny dot no larger then what we see in our sky. Thanks, that does make sense now. Geoschmo |
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Yes, the diagram is as how I think the pic was taken.
The best way I can explain it is that the pic was obviously taken with some telescopic lens and (after a bit of research) the diameter of Jupiter is 11.21 times Earth's diameter. So, even though it is farther away, the planets appear roughly similar in size. If they were at the same radius from the camera, Jupiter would take up much more of the picture. Slick. [ May 23, 2003, 20:40: Message edited by: Slick ] |
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Holy Smokes! When I hit reply for the previous post, there were no Posts after the one with Geo's pic. And it certainly didn't take me long to type it. All the in-between Posts came in at about the same minute.
Slick. |
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Wait a minute, they say that the picture is colored!!!
What the heck that means? that it isn't real? |
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It's not because they "retouch" a picture that it's not real. It means they make the colours clearer so you can see the colours better. No conspiracy here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
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And I think the camera does have some magnification, so no you would not see earth (or Jupiter) like that with the naked eye if you were there. |
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"Wait a minute, they say that the picture is colored!!!
What the heck that means? that it isn't real?" Hint: most scientific results you find for public view have been massaged in one way or another. The difference is whether they tell you or not. This is a harmless case of that. Its actually two black and white pictures layered together; in the actual earth image, Jupiter would be too faint to see (not enough exposure time) |
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The following info (taken from a local popular science magazine) has some relation to this thread's topic :
"Last year, a discreet star known as V838 Monocerotis suddenly became brighter. In a matter of months, it was emitting 600,000 times more light than our Sun and became the Milky Way's brightest star. It became visible from Earth with the help of a pair of binoculars, even though it is 19,500 light-years away. As it came, it went. It grew gradually darker until, now, it would take a powerful telescope and excellent eyesight to see it. University of Arizona researchers declared that they cannot simulate the star's behavior using current astrophysical theory." Did anyone think, "Stellar Nucleonic Torpedo" ? |
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