Solar System Portrait

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by wet1, Feb 14, 2002.

  1. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Solar System Portrait
    Credit: Voyager Project, JPL, NASA
    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. Voyager's wide angle camera
    frames sweep through the inner Solar System
    (far left) linking up with gas giant Neptune, at the time
    the Solar System's outermost planet (scroll right).
    Positions for Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
    Neptune are indicated by the corresponding 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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