“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
La Colmena no se hace responsable ni se solidariza con las opiniones o conceptos emitidos por los autores de los artículos.
13 de septiembre de 2019
Saturn and Its Rings Look Truly Spectacular in This Hubble Telescope Portrait
The
rings of Saturn can be an awesome sight through a telescope, and when
you've got the most iconic space telescope at your disposal, the view is
absolutely jaw-dropping. Case in point: this amazing new view from the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA and the European Space Agency unveiled the new Saturn
portrait today (Sept. 12). The image was taken on June 20 by Hubble's
Wide Field Camera 3 as Saturn was about 845 million miles (1.36 billion
kilometers) away.
It's the second in a series of annual photos for the Outer Planets Legacy project
by scientists studying the gas giant planets of our solar system. "In
Saturn's case, scientists are tracking weather patterns and other
changes to identify trends," NASA and ESA officials said in an image description. Video: Watch Saturn's Moons Dance in Amazing Hubble View
Related: Amazing Photos of Saturn's Glorious Rings
The
rings of Saturn and four of its moons take center stage in this
portrait by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 taken on
June 20, 2019.
(Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley))
That science is all well and good, but to the casual viewer, it's the beauty of Saturn that reigns supreme in the new image.
"Saturn
hosts many recognizable features, most notably its trademark ring
system, which is now tilted towards Earth," NASA/ESA officials wrote in
the image description. "This gives us a magnificent view of its bright
icy structure."
And then, there's Saturn's bizarre hexagon,
a target of truly perplexing geometry. The weird hexagon-shaped
phenomenon encircles Saturn's north pole and was first spotted by NASA's
Cassini spacecraft in 2007. Cassini orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017.
"It
is a mysterious six-sided pattern caused by a high-speed jet stream,"
NASA/ESA officials added. "The hexagon is so large that four Earths
could fit inside its boundaries (there is no similar structure at Saturn's south pole)." Photos: Saturn's Bizarre Hexagon Up Close
Four of Saturn's moons (which number 62 in all) are visible in the new Hubble portrait. Among them is Mimas, the "Death Star" moon — so called because its massive Herschel crater gives it a look akin to the fictional moonlike space station from "Star Wars."
The other Saturnian moons spotted by Hubble are icy Enceladus, which harbors geysers and a vast water ocean under an icy shell; Janus, a potato-shaped moon covered in craters; and Tethys, an icy round moon with weird red arcs of material on its surface.
Finally, there's Saturn itself, which shines like a ruddy jewel in the black of space.
"Saturn's
amber colors come from summer smog-like hazes, produced in
photochemical reactions driven by solar ultraviolet radiation," NASA/ESA
officials said. "Below the haze lie clouds of ammonia ice crystals, as
well as deeper, unseen lower-level clouds of ammonium hydrosulphide and
water."
Saturn's moons Enceladus, Janus, Mimas and Tethys are visible in the 2019 portrait taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
(Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC) and the OPAL Team)
Saturn's atmosphere gets its banded look from winds and clouds moving at different altitudes.
The
Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and is one of the most prolific
space observatories of all time. The orbiting telescope typically gazes
into the deepest expanses of space to make cosmic discoveries, but its
camera eye can reveal surprising details about planets closer to home.
"Hubble's
high-resolution images of our planetary neighbors can only be surpassed
by pictures taken from spacecraft that actually visit these bodies,"
'NASA/ESA officials wrote. "However, Hubble has one advantage over space
probes; it can look at these objects periodically and observe them over
much longer periods than any passing probe could."
