Ted Stryk

See Uranus’s rosy glow in its full 3D glory Fresh observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show how vivid auroras surge through Uranus’s tilted magnetic field

A cool thing in these JWST 🔭 Uranus infrared images -- ASIDE from the (artificially-blue) polar cap & the dynamic bright clouds -- is the imaging of the aurora! It is the reddish glow extending above the clouds (e.g. 10 o'clock in the image on the right) www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...

The smooth surface of Enceladus.

Enceladus, moon of Saturn, from the Cassini spacecraft on November 4, 2016. It is still odd not having views like this anymore. The run between 2004-2017 made it feel normal. I hope JUICE and Clipper, both in the Jovian system, have a similar effect.

All Members of the Solar System Beyond Saturn and Smaller Than 80 Kilometers In Diameter for Which We Have Disk-Resolved Imagery shown at 1 km/pixel (at least in the original version, Bluesky may alter the scale). Data for Pluto’s Moons (Styx, Nix, Kerberos, Hydra) and Arrokoth from New Horizons Courtesy NASA/SWRI/APL. Data for Naiad (Neptune), Belinda (Uranus), and Cordelia (Uranus) from Voyager 2 Courtesy NASA/JPL

These little worlds are fascinating. Given the little swarms around Uranus and Neptune, plus the whole host of KBO objects, it is enough to wet one's appetite, but our datasets are so limited.

I'd rather set money on fire.

Luna 16 landed at night but took some imagery in earthshine. According to accounts at the time, it showed some detail. However, these panoramas have never surfaced. Luna 24 did not carry a camera.

The sampling arm of Luna 20 in two different positions. I am not sure the actual order in which this sequence was taken.

In February of 1972, Luna 20 was on the moon in the Apollonius highlands, with its sampling arm hard at work finding a place to drill and then burrowing into the surface. This would be the only one of the three successful Soviet sample return missions to photograph the surface...maybe...

And yes, @rocher.lc, a lot of those "savings" would go into more bureaucracy to keep the system going.

Online could just divide into lots of small sections so that students didn't realize how many people their supposed professor was "teaching." That would be harder to do in-person.

Not to mention that I could give a thousand students the feedback volume I give my current students with AI. It would be utter shyte, but at a glance it would look thorough. So they could get rid of most faculty without, they think, students noticing much, particularly online.

A heart shaped volcanic feature on Io from Voyager 1.

The deposits around the volcano Pele on Io looked like a heart as Voyager 1 approached in March of 1979. For today, I rotated it around to emphasize that. By the time Galileo saw it in 1996, the indentation at the top of this image was mostly gone. Happy Valentine's Day!

It all depends on one's definition of true
It's more knowing more about light than most people do
By definition calling something a color means it doesn't absorb that hue

Wow, I didn't know that Einstein was the first to recognize him!

Sometimes you will see someone who describes themself as a "visionary" in their bio. If it is ironic or sarcastic, they're fine. But if not, it's very important that you do not follow that person. They have nothing to offer.

Three progressively more distant views of Mercury from Mariner 10.

Mariner 10 receding from humanity's first encounter with Mercury in March of 1973. New features slowly rotate into view, including the large crater "Mozart" just below the center of the terminator.

The scientific term for what they are doing is "making shit up," Simon.

The Uranian rings silhouetted against the planet.

Verona Rupes, a large escarpment on Miranda's terminator in Voyager's imagery.

The surface of Ariel

An impact basin on Titania's terminator.

I hope you enjoyed the 40th anniversary tour of the Uranian system. I hope we see this it again as soon as possible.

The volcanic surface of Io.

Io, moon of Jupiter, from the Galileo spacecraft on April 4, 1997. The dark spot surrounded by the red circle is Pele, a large volcano. The caldera Loki can be seen as a black spot with an island in the middle near the terminator.

Hello, Substack I’m just here to read.

I created a Substack. I have no immediate plans to use it to do anything but read, but if any of you write on there, feel free to connect with me so I can follow you. tedstryk.substack.com/p/hello-subs...

This is my image processing work, as my bio makes clear - that's what I use this account for. And I am very familiar with historical image sets. So anyway, just so you are aware, you aren't hot about anything here, you're just really, really lazy.

A high resolution view of a crescent Io with mountains near the terminator.

Io from the Juno spacecraft on February 3, 2024. The night side can be seen in reflected light from Jupiter. The quality of this dataset is truly stunning.

The lunar surface at a high illumination angle.

The lunar surface at a high illumination angle.

The lunar surface at a high illumination angle.

The lunar surface at a high illumination angle.

Sixty years ago today, on February 3, 1966, Luna-9 was the first spacecraft to survive landing on the surface of another world. It is wild to think that the Space Age is so young that there are still millions alive now who were adults when this happened.

Approaching Oberon. Sadly, owing to its longer orbit/rotation, Voyager did not get much coverage beyond the encounter hemisphere.

The closest thing to a good image of Oberon we have.

A crescent Oberon from the receding Voyager 2.

Puck, or 1985U1, was discovered by Voyager 2 on approach to Uranus. A single image that would have been of Miranda was spared in order to get a look at it. It's surface is even darker than that of Umbriel.

Oberon, the second largest moon of Uranus, got the worst coverage of all. Still, it can be seen that there is some dark intrusion on the floor of the ray crater near the center of the moon, hinting that it was once active. The last image is Puck, smaller than Miranda, the only one showing detail.

The first image of Umbriel to clearly show a bright spot

Slightly higher resolution but with poorer quality image data.

The second best view of Umbriel, showing a bright spot at the top and clearly showing Wunda, top right, as a circular feature.

The best view of Umbriel, with Wunda at the top and a bright spot on a crater central peak visible on the upper terminator. The previous views didn't have the resolution to show this one.

With the Uranian moon Umbriel, we enter the territory of worlds which we can only marginally call explored. It is about the same size of Ariel, but with a dark, cratered surface which is punctuated by some bright spots and a bright crater rim called "Wunda."

A massive hotspot — larger the Earth’s Lake Superior — can be seen just to the right of Io’s south pole in this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA’s Juno on Dec. 27, 2024, during the spacecraft’s flyby of the Jovian moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

NASA's Juno spacecraft detected the largest volcanic hotspot ever seen in our solar system. It appeared on Jupiter's moon Io, it covers 100,000 square kilometers (bigger than Lake Superior), and it radiates 80 trillion watts of heat. 🧪🔭

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ju...

Titania at zero (full) phase

The highest resolution color view of Titania (the images are stacked to improve visibility, but they are shown here in black and white)

The highest resolution view of Titania

A crescent Titania as the Spacecraft receded

Titania is the largest of the Uranian moons. While Voyager couldn't fly close to it and still get to Neptune, it recorded more images of it than any other moon. The surface appears cratered with some clear tectonic features. The highest resolution images were at 4.5 km/pixel.

The opposite side of Ariel from closest approach

The last wide angle image of Ariel

Ariel near closest approach.

The canyons of Ariel from the highest resolution imagery.

In addition to Miranda, Ariel, the next-innermost major moon of Uranus, received a decently close flyby from Voyager in 1986, revealing a complex, tectonically altered, and just-possibly active moon.

From a day out, the fact that this isn't a cratered, dead world was becoming clear.

The best color view, taken before closest approach. I am showing it here in black and white for consistency with the other images.

The high resolution mosaic from closest approach. The best images are at about 250 meters/pixel.

Just after closest approach, Miranda began to fade into the black of space.

Flying by Miranda with Voyage 2 in 1986. Forty years ago, this moon, with its jumbled surface, awed the world.

Bluesky post with 230 likes and 76 reposts

X post with 15 likes and 7 reposts.

Like I thought, my account on the old site is basically a zombie account with phantom followers now. Which means there's no reason to save it in case the site is sold.

I've been reactivating roughly once a month to prevent deletion in case the site is ever sold and the account becomes worthwhile again. But I'm reaching the point where I'm not sure that starting from scratch if that ever happens might be the better idea.

I just reactivated my old site account and posted this there as well. It isn't going to stay there, it is just an experiment. I nominally have about twice as may followers there as here. I want to see if there are actual people still using any of those accounts.