Planets and the Moon

Insert the blue disc into the projector.

 

Saturn’s System
Images of Saturn’s system were taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft and put together to make this montage. Saturn’s moon Dione is at the front of the image, with Saturn rising behind. Tethys and Mimas are in the distance on the right, with Enceladus and Rhea off Saturn’s rings to the left. Titan is in its distant orbit at the top.

 

 

 

Moon Surface
This close up view of the moon’s surface was photographed by Apollo 10 astronauts in 1969. Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the NASA Apollo space programme. It was a test mission for Apollo 11 and did not actually land on the Moon.

 

 

 

Jupiter
This photo of Jupiter was taken by Voyager 1. It shows the swirling clouds around Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is a storm that has lasted for at least 180 years and possibly much longer. The spot is large enough to contain two or three planets the size of Earth!

 

 

Venus
The Magellan spacecraft was an unmanned NASA space probe sent to the planet Venus. It took photographs of 98% of Venus’s surface, giving us this very detailed image. The colour-coding shows the height of the different parts of Venus.

 

 

Saturn’s Rings
This photograph was taken by Voyager 2 from 2.7 million km (1.7 million miles) away from Saturn. It is of Saturn’s B ring (coloured blue) and C ring (coloured yellow). The rings of Saturn are made mostly of water ice, with some dust and other chemicals. They are actually the grey colour of dirty ice but have been colour enhanced in this photo.

 

 

Moon Set over Earth
The image of the Moon setting over the Earth was taken by the Space Shuttle Discovery during its STS-70 mission.

 

 

 

 

Mars
This is the best Hubble Telescope image of Mars, taken in 1999 when Mars was the closest that it had been to the Earth in 80 years. This photo is taken in the Martian northern summer with the northern polar cap clearly visible. The large dark feature on Mars is called Syrtis Major.

 

 

 

The Earth and Moon
On its way to the Jupiter system, the Galileo spacecraft took photographs of the Earth and Moon. The image of the Earth shows South America and the Caribbean. The swirling white clouds indicate a storm in the Pacific Ocean. In the bottom left of the Moon, the Tycho impact crater can be clearly seen.