However, since we cannot directly observe these planets with our current technology, the images we see are not actual photographs or representations of what the planet really looks like. Instead, they are artistic interpretations that are meant to help us visualize and understand the characteristics of these distant worlds.
NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration website notes that most of the images we have of exoplanets are “artist's impressions” or “conceptual illustrations.” These images are created by artists and scientists based on the available data and scientific models, rather than being direct observations.
So, while these depictions can be incredibly detailed and informative, they are still illustrations rather than images, since they are not based on direct observations or photographs of the planets themselves.
Sharing some of my favorite #Hubble images from the #NASA archives to commemorate the space telescope’s 33rd anniversary. We should take a moment to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the universe.
Information about the images + Hubble facts, a thread: 1/x
#Hubble captured a stunning image of #Jupiter from a distance of 653 million kilometers from Earth. The image shows the giant planet's turbulent atmosphere, a new storm brewing, and a changing #GreatRedSpot. Also, the image features Jupiter's icy moon #Europa.
#HLF: a stunning image, 16 years in the making, comprising thousands of snapshots and representing one of the widest views of the universe ever captured. It includes observations from the eXtreme Deep Field and captures the galaxy assembly in ultraviolet to near-infrared light.
One of the most visually stunning images #Hubble has captured. This is the giant nebula #NGC2014 and its neighbor #NGC2020, part of a star-forming region in the #LargeMagellanicCloud—a satellite galaxy of the #MilkyWay, about 163,000 light-years distant.
This is #NGC2525, a captivating galaxy located in the constellation of #Puppis, nearly 70 million light-years from Earth. It is notable for being home to a supermassive black hole. It is being observed by the #HubbleSpaceTelescope to measure the universe's expansion rate.
Astronomers are celebrating NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and located approximately 960 light-years away.
On Twitter, I stumbled across a tweet that was asking the question “What is that one book that absolutely changed your life?”
Reading Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ was a transformative experience. It has made me appreciate the fragility and beauty of our planet, and the vastness and complexity of the universe. Thank you, Carl, for this incredible gift.
I'm back!! ✌️
I took a long break away from social media to gather my thoughts and figure out what I want to do going forward... Also rest a bit as I was burnt out.
The volcanoes, whose inner-most workings are exposed in the granitic rocks of the Sierra Nevada, transformed the ancient sediment layers into which they were intruded. Erosion later isolated the remnants of the metamorphosed rock, suspending them above the granite as "roof pendants." The folding of these layers is most dramatically illustrated at Convict Lake when the lighting is just right. Click on the photo to below to expand.
"The story of the mountains around you began half a billion years ago when sand and gravel washed off an ancient continent and built up in layers beneath a vast ocean. Changed by extreme heat and pressure, most of these rocks have eroded away, but some remain.
Embedded within them are fossils of organisms that lived in the ancient sea and are some of the oldest rocks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”
Heart Mountain, a 8,123 feet high peak, is composed of dolomite,limestone and volcanic rocks formed several hundred million years ago, and is lying atop, and surrounded by, younger rocks formed around 55 million years ago. Older rocks atop younger rocks rarely happen, but do occur in geologic features such as igneous intrusions into older rock, recumbent folds, thrust faults, detachment faults, and -spoiler alert- landslides.
But how exactly this mass of older rocks, part of a much larger mass of rocks, managed to overcome gravity and slide 28 miles in under 30 minutes became the controversy of its day. Turns out, Wyoming geologist Myron Cook has the answer due to tons of work by hundreds of geologists, and it is a much larger story than just Heart Mountain. The link below is to his fascinating, but very long video on the Heart Mountain Detachment fault and landslide. I encourage you to watch it, but have recapped it below.
The first image, a Google Earth map below, shows the area of Wyoming near Cody where the landslide occurred. The arrows point to two volcanic systems, even larger than Yellowstone, that lay northwest (map looking to the southeast towards Heart Mountain, small green dot) that existed around 50 million years ago. These stratovolcanoes were 20,000 feet high above the Bighorn basin, and the magma fed up dikes through the hundreds of millions year-old sedimentary rocks.
These volcanoes were explosive and the earthquakes they generated were enough to “rattle things around” and crack open a detachment fault along a bedding plane of the Bighorn Dolomite. Recent research suggests the detachment was caused by collapse of one of the volcanic flanks. Nevertheless, the red outline shows the area of the Heart Mountain detachment/ landslide zone along which about 20 miles by 30 miles of 800 + feet of sedimentary rock topped with (maybe) thousands of feet of volcanic deposits that slid catastrophically, very quickly, and all at once.
The second image shows the detachment fault, a hairline thin contact in the dolomite (carbonate rock) with a very shallow dip of only 2%, just feet above a shale horizon. Once movement was initiated, the mass began to slide. The heat from the friction extracted and superheated CO2 gases buoying the rock. The shallow slope became “frictionless” and in areas there is no deformation of the underlying base.
The slide caused the mass of rock to break into blocks, some have estimated over 100 blocks slid during the slide at a speed well over 100mph. The directions of the sliding bifurcated, (image 3) and some blocks slid towards where Heart Mountain stands now, and some slid more southerly where other blocks now lie.
The last image (4) shows something startling - if you drilled through Heart Mountain down into Bighorn Basin, you would reach Bighorn dolomite again 15,000 feet down, and mirroring the stratigraphy of Heart mountain. This is because between 75 and 50 million years ago, a period of mountain-building called the Laramide Orogeny caused uplift of the area the detachment formed in, and subsidence of the Bighorn basin. The Bighorn basin filled with thousands of feet of newer sedimentary rock including the 55 millon year-old Willwood formation on which Heart Mountain lies.
Learn how Supervolcanoes caused the World’s Largest Landslide in Wyoming by Myron Cook: https://youtu.be/CYS3r3tk2GI
#introduction I am a 🇫🇷 molecular & structural biologist working at the CNRS. I study the molecular mechanisms that control human gene expression focusing on #transcription factors & the Pol II machinery
Expect to see here a lot of info on #generegulation, #enhancers, #histone modifications & structural insights into the eukaryotic Transcription Initiation machinery. #CryoEM
I will also highlight #womeninscience to give them the visibility they deserve
Also #Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of #MaxPlanck, a brilliant physicist and gifted musician. His contributions to physics were unparalleled, and his love for creativity and intellectual pursuit continues to inspire us today.
Hello! I’ve been on Twitter, I’m giving mastodon a try 🐘
Look forward to connecting with you on #ScienceMastodon I’ll toot on chemicals of emerging concern - I’m interested on shifting science to policy to protect the #environment
Science 🧪 🧬 toots interspersed with random #nature photos bringing colour to your feed
Look forward to connecting with you!
Marie Curie's notebooks, which are radioactive and must be stored in a lead-lined box in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Curie’s corpse is also radioactive. Her coffin is lined in an inch of lead. Both will remain radioactive for 1,500+ years.