All StarDate subscribers will receive a FREE copy of the StarDate special guide to the 2023 & 2024 solar eclipses. If you are already a subscriber, you will receive your special issue in mid-September.
If you are not currently a StarDate subscriber, now is the time to give us a try. Purchase a subscription today to receive your free copy of the StarDate special issue on the 2023 & 2024 solar eclipses!
All StarDate subscribers will receive a FREE copy of the StarDate special guide to the 2023 & 2024 solar eclipses. If you are already a subscriber, you will receive your special issue in mid-September.
If you are not currently a StarDate subscriber, now is the time to give us a try. Purchase a subscription today to receive your free copy of the StarDate special issue on the 2023 & 2024 solar eclipses!
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A total solar eclipse will take place on August 21. It will cover a narrow slice of the United States, from Oregon to South Carolina. Millions of Americans are expected to travel to the eclipse path, making it the most-viewed solar eclipse in history.
Robotic probes may someday provide close-up views of some of the most remarkable vistas in the solar system, from the canyons of Mars to the ice-geysers of Triton. For a true hot-spot, they might show us the surface of Io, one of the moons of Jupiter. It is an eerie landscape of active volcanoes, tall mountains, and plains covered with frozen sulfur.
Deimos is farther away and moves slowly from east to west. Deimos would look like a small dot of light in the sky. Phobos is slowly moving closer to Mars. In another 50 to 100 million years, it will crash into Mars.
Phobos is small, dark, and airless. And it's one of the driest bodies in the solar system.
Triton, the largest satellite of Neptune, orbits in the opposite direction from most moons, suggesting that Neptune captured it in the distant past. Millions of years from now, Triton will move so close to Neptune that tidal forces will rip Triton apart, forming bright new rings around the giant planet.
Most of what we know about Triton came from Voyager 2, which photographed a landscape that is tinted subtle shades of pink, brown, and blue. Much of it resembles a cantaloupe, with ridges thousands of feet tall. Flowing ice or vaporizing gas may have carved this wrinkly terrain.
