Starship Asterisk*

Solar System Portrait

Explanation: On another Valentine's Day (February 14, 1990), cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back to make this first ever family portrait of our Solar System. The complete portrait is a 60 frame mosaic made from a vantage point 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, at the time the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right. Positions for Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are indicated by letters, while the Sun is the bright spot near the center of the circle of frames. The inset frames for each of the planets are from Voyager's narrow field camera. Unseen in the portrait are Mercury, too close to the Sun to be detected, and Mars, unfortunately hidden by sunlight scattered in the camera's optical system. Small, faint Pluto's position was not covered.

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Hmm... Datsa whole lot different then any family portrait I've ever seen, and a hellava lot Bigger also

It's amazing that Voyager 1 is out there and still functioning. I would love to see an artist's concept of that composit.

Reminded me of a favorite:

Interesting, but kind of confusing.

:---[===] *

It's a shame Pluto didn't make it to this family portrait.
He's kind of the awkward cousin nowadays...

APOD Robot wrote: In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, at the time the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right.

This image ROCKS!

ritwik wrote:

APOD Robot wrote: In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, at the time the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right.

It's rude to roll your eyes like that.

Wonderful Voyagers! And the one in Star Trek!

Wow, a humbling experience that reminds us all, despite the numbers of newly found exo-planets, we are very small and very, very far from anything remotely like our awesome and fragile home.

ritwik wrote:

APOD Robot wrote: In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, at the time the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right.

It''s not that bad. Pluto was near perihelion in 1990, and passed Neptune's distance from the Sun outbound almost nine years that date (I see one reference to Feb. 11, 1999). The statement refers to that circumstance rather than planetary definitions.

I had an undergraduate professor who asked the identity of the most distant known planet twice during one term in 1979, with the answer changing between exams. I cite this as evidence that I am not remotely as devious as some students believe me to be. Of course, I'd want them to think so anyway.

stephen63 wrote:Reminded me of a favorite:

Oh, Stephen, that is beautiful! I've not seen this video before - thank you so much for posting it.

Margarita

Night eyes wrote:Wow, a humbling experience that reminds us all, despite the numbers of newly found exo-planets, we are very small and very, very far from anything remotely like our awesome and fragile home.

Indeed, and that is something we should all bear in mind. It's not as if we can use up the Earth by next week and move to Mars in April - or in the foreseeable future.

Ann

Ann wrote:

Night eyes wrote:Wow, a humbling experience that reminds us all, despite the numbers of newly found exo-planets, we are very small and very, very far from anything remotely like our awesome and fragile home.

Indeed, and that is something we should all bear in mind. It's not as if we can use up the Earth by next week and move to Mars in April - or in the foreseeable future.

Ann

Yes. Something that has been borne upon me, since working the the lectures about the planets of our solar system on the Astronomy course that Robert Nemiroff has put on YouTube, is how extra-ordinarily beautiful and rich our own planet is.
That is very obvious and possibly sounds trite - but The Earth is a very precious place. The more I see of Elsewhere the more I realise that there really is No Place Like Home...

Margarita

MargaritaMc wrote:

Click to view full size image

Ann wrote:

Night eyes wrote:Wow, a humbling experience that reminds us all, despite the numbers of newly found exo-planets, we are very small and very, very far from anything remotely like our awesome and fragile home.

Indeed, and that is something we should all bear in mind. It's not as if we can use up the Earth by next week and move to Mars in April - or in the foreseeable future.

Ann

Yes. Something that has been borne upon me, since working the the lectures about the planets of our solar system on the Astronomy course that Robert Nemiroff has put on YouTube, is how extra-ordinarily beautiful and rich our own planet is.
That is very obvious and possibly sounds trite - but The Earth is a very precious place. The more I see of Elsewhere the more I realise that there really is No Place Like Home...

Margarita

Just click your heels together three times and repeat after me ...

Do you know, I'd not remembered the red slippers...
I was more thinking of,

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;

MargaritaMc wrote:Do you know, I'd not remembered the red slippers...
I was more thinking of,

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;

Home, Sweet Home ~ John Howard Payne

You write the book, you make the slippers silver. You make the first color movie, you don't use slippers that will look like the came out of a black and white film. You supply your STAR with footwear which give her a little more glamor. Notice the reference to a star so we stay on an astronomy topic.

orin stepanek wrote:Wonderful Voyagers! And the one in Star Trek!

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Here's a more fuller version.

Beyond wrote: Here's a more fuller version.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Twould be a new meaning for: And the two became one!

Why settle for a single still picture when we can have video?

Happy Valentine´s Day for all

Boomer12k wrote:Interesting, but kind of confusing.

:---[===] *

Yorgos_Kap wrote:It's a shame Pluto didn't make it to this family portrait.
He's kind of the awkward cousin nowadays...

This simulated view from voyager helps with perspective, and does include pluto.

Does Pluto's orbit really go inside, not only the orbit of Neptune, but also of Uranus? That is what this image seems to show. I knew about Neptune, of course, but skimming the orbit of Uranus is new to me.

Margarita