Friday, October 8, 2010

APOD 1.6

October 8th, 2010.  Two Planet Opposition.





This picture demonstrates an important concept in astronomy that we discussed in our previous chapter, opposition.  Opposition means that the planets were aligned opposite of the sun with Jupiter and Uranus orbiting close enough to be seen in Earth's sky (still thousands of millions of kilometers). The conversion factor website linked to the picture was very interesting as it really put the absurd numbers of light years we hear into perspective so that we can accurately gauge about how large these numbers actually are.  Uranus is the planet located in the top right with the greenish tint, and the two minuscule dots above it are its moons. Theses are only 2 of Uranus' 5 larger moons and are named Oberon and Titania for characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The larger planet located on the right side of the photograph is Jupiter which is surrounded by its 4 Galilean Satellites named after Galileo's observations of the orbiting moons. Starting from the bottom left and working up the the top right, the names of the moons are respectively; Callisto, Europa, Io, and on the opposing side of the planet rests Ganymede. 

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