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Showing posts with the label Deepest

The Deepest Known Canyon in the Solar System, Seen from Space

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The worlds of the solar system beyond Earth have amazing surface features. Thanks to planetary science missions, we see images of canyons, craters and cliffs around the world. One day, these places will provide new challenges for mountaineers and climbers. In particular, Mars will be a favorite destination. Future climbers and mountaineers will be spoiled for choice, even if they have to put on a spacesuit to get their thrills. For example, there is the canyon region of Valles Marineris. It is the largest known feature in the solar system, many times larger than Earth’s Grand Canyon. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter has just returned a stunning image of this gorge. Pictures of Mars and Mars Express The final view from the Mars Express focuses on two trenches—the so-called “chasma”—in western Valles Marineris. They are Ius Chasma and Tithonium Chasma, the deepest part of the canyon. The whole system looks complex and complicated. That’s because it was formed fro

“A New Era of Discovery”: Now We Can See the Deepest Infrared View from Space

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Scientists were impressed, excited, amazed, and every space enthusiast was stunned when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Tuesday unveiled the clearest image from outer space ever seen. One scientist even shed tears. The five images come from the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, Webb for short). Webb has been orbiting the Sun since taking off from French Guiana on December 25, 2021, and the stunning full-color image is just the start of what to expect from the telescope in the next two decades. The images open our eyes to a faintly dead star, called the Southern Ring Nebula, which stretches over a black background of space with glowing red and blue colors, with a shimmering star in the center, and to the Carina Nebula. —which looks very much like a rugged mountain range with a blue night sky with young stars shining all over the area. “Webb will enable major advances in the study of objects at multip