#planet

I snuck my pet theory about Roman mythology into my book: Pluto isn’t the god of the underworld. Pluto is just the god of

Where is the lie?

What will become of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system’s largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth. Jupiter is home to one of the largest and longest lasting storm systems known, the Great Red Spot (GRS), visible to the left. The GRS is so large it could swallow Earth- but it has been shrinking. Comparison with historical notes indicate that the storm spans only about one third of the exposed surface area it had 150 years ago. NASA’s Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program has been monitoring the storm more recently using the Hubble Space Telescope. The featured Hubble OPAL image shows Jupiter as it appeared in 2016, processed in a way that makes red hues appear quite vibrant. Modern GRS data indicate that the storm continues to constrict its surface area, but is also becoming slightly taller, vertically. No one knows the future of the GRS, including the possibility that if the shrinking trend continues, the GRS might one day even do what smaller spots on Jupiter have done – disappear completely.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, OPAL Program, STScI; Processing: Karol Masztalerz

Happy Earth day!

Marking the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our planet Earth, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we refer to as twilight. With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right, the cloud tops reflect gently reddened sunlight filtered through the dusty troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. A clear high altitude layer, visible along the dayside’s upper edge, scatters blue sunlight and fades into the blackness of space. This picture was taken in June of 2001 from the International Space Station.

Image Credit: ISS Expedition 2 Crew, Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, NASA

планета  (f)
planéta
planet

Example sentence:

В 2006 году Международный Астрономический Союз решил создать новую категорию для объектов Солнечной системы - планеты-карлики, и Плутон был переклассифицирован как одна из карликовых планет.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union decided to create a new category for solar system objects called “dwarf planets”, and Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.