Saturday, April 25, 2015

Hubble Telescope's 25 years in images - BBC News





Flight to Star Cluster Westerlund 2

Flight to Star Cluster Westerlund 2:


Explosión volcán calbuco

Explosión volcán calbuco:


Friday, April 24, 2015

NASA Celestial Fireworks

Celestial Fireworks: The brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resemble a glittering fireworks display in the 25th anniversary NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, released to commemorate a quarter century of exploring the solar system and beyond since its launch on April 24, 1990.


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Total Solar Eclipse over Svalbard

Total Solar Eclipse over Svalbard: APOD: 2015 April 20 - Total Solar Eclipse over Svalbard


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2015 April 20


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Explanation: Going, going, gone. That was the feeling in Svalbard, Norway last month during a total eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. In the featured image, the eclipse was captured every three minutes and then digitally merged with a foreground frame taken from the same location. Visible in the foreground are numerous gawking eclipse seekers, some deploying pretty sophisticated cameras. As the Moon and Sun moved together across the sky -- nearly horizontally from this far north -- an increasing fraction of the Sun appears covered by the Moon. In the central frame, the Moon's complete blockage of the disk of the Sun makes the immediate surroundings appear like night during the day. The exception is the Moon itself, which now appears surrounded by the expansive corona of the Sun. Of course, about 2.5 minutes later, the surface of the Sun began to reappear. The next total eclipse of the Sun will occur in 2016 March and be visible from Southeast Asia.

Colorful Star Clouds in Cygnus

Colorful Star Clouds in Cygnus: APOD: 2015 April 22 - Colorful Star Clouds in Cygnus


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2015 April 22


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Explanation: Stars can form in colorful surroundings. Featured here is a star forming region rich in glowing gas and dark dust toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), near the bright star Sadr. This region, which spans about 50 light years, is part of the Gamma Cygni nebula which lies about 1,800 light years distant. Toward the right of the image is Barnard 344, a dark and twisted dust cloud rich in cool molecular gas. A dramatic wall of dust and red-glowing hydrogen gas forms a line down the picture center. While the glowing red gas is indicative of small emission nebulas, the blue tinted areas are reflection nebulas -- starlight reflecting from usually dark dust grains. The Gamma Cygni nebula will likely not last the next billion years, as most of the bright young stars will explode, most of the dust will be destroyed, and most of the gas will drift away.

Meteor in the Milky Way

Meteor in the Milky Way: APOD: 2015 April 23 - Meteor in the Milky Way


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2015 April 23


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Explanation: Earth's April showers include the Lyrid Meteor Shower, observed for more than 2,000 years when the planet makes its annual passage through the dust stream of long-period Comet Thatcher. A grain of that comet's dust, moving 48 kilometers per second at an altitude of 100 kilometers or so, is swept up in this night sky view from the early hours of April 21. Flashing toward the southeastern horizon, the meteor's brilliant streak crosses the central region of the rising Milky Way. Its trail points back toward the shower's radiant in the constellation Lyra, high in the northern springtime sky and off the top of the frame. The yellowish hue of giant star Antares shines to the right of the Milky Way's bulge. Higher still is bright planet Saturn, near the right edge. Seen from Istra, Croatia, the Lyrid meteor's greenish glow reflects in the waters of the Adriatic Sea.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Ring Galaxy AM 0644 741 from Hubble

Ring Galaxy AM 0644 741 from Hubble: APOD: 2015 April 19 - Ring Galaxy AM 0644 741 from Hubble


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2015 April 19



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Explanation: How could a galaxy become shaped like a ring? The rim of the blue galaxy pictured on the right is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly formed, extremely bright, massive stars. That galaxy, AM 0644-741, is known as a ring galaxy and was caused by an immense galaxy collision. When galaxies collide, they pass through each other -- their individual stars rarely come into contact. The ring-like shape is the result of the gravitational disruption caused by an entire small intruder galaxy passing through a large one. When this happens, interstellar gas and dust become condensed, causing a wave of star formation to move out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond. The intruder galaxy is just outside of the frame taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This featured image was taken to commemorate the anniversary of Hubble's launch in 1990. Ring galaxy AM 0644-741 lies about 300 million light years away.

Monday, April 20, 2015

THINK ABOUT THE UNIVERSE AND GOD - HD GIF

THINK ABOUT THE UNIVERSE AND GOD:



GIF-THINK-ABOUT-THE-UNIVERSE-AND-GOD-GOOGLE-IMAGES.jpg
Date: May 20, 2014, 2:16 PM

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Sunday, April 19, 2015

Pan-STARRS and Nebulae

Pan-STARRS and Nebulae: APOD: 2012 October 12 - Pan-STARRS and Nebulae


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2012 October 12


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Explanation: A single field from the world's most powerful survey instrument captures this spectacular skyview. Looking toward Sagittarius, the scene spans nearly 3 degrees or six times the width of the Full Moon. At bottom, upper right, and lower left it covers the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid Nebula (M20), and NGC 6559, in the crowded, dusty starfields of the central Milky Way. The adopted color scheme shows dust reddened starlight in red hues and normally red emission from hydrogen atoms in green. Built and operated by the Pan-STARRS project, the instrument features a 1.4 gigapixel (billion pixel) digital camera and telescope. Pan-STARRS, the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, is intended to scan the skies for potentially dangerous near-earth asteroids and comets, exploring the Universe with a unique high resolution, wide field view.

Black Sun and Inverted Starfield

Black Sun and Inverted Starfield: APOD: 2012 October 15 - Black Sun and Inverted Starfield


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2012 October 15


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Black Sun and Inverted Starfield

Image Credit & Copyright: Jim Lafferty
Explanation: Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the above image, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a very specific color of red light, then rendered in black and white, and then color inverted. Once complete, the resulting image was added to a starfield, then also color inverted. Visible in the above image of the Sun are long light filaments, dark active regions, prominences peeking around the edge, and a moving carpet of hot gas. The surface of our Sun has become a particularly busy place over the past two years because it is now nearing Solar Maximum, the time when its surface magnetic field is wound up the most. Besides an active Sun being so picturesque, the plasma expelled can also become picturesque when it impacts the Earth's magnetosphere and creates auroras.

A Spiral Nebula Surrounding Star R Sculptoris

A Spiral Nebula Surrounding Star R Sculptoris: APOD: 2012 October 16 - A Spiral Nebula Surrounding Star R Sculptoris


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2012 October 16


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Explanation: What's happening around that star? An unusual spiral structure has been discovered around the Milky Way star R Sculptoris, a red giant star located about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Sculptor (Sculptoris). The star was observed with the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the most powerful telescopic array observing near millimeter wavelengths, that part of the spectrum situated well beyond red light but before microwaves and radio waves. Data from ALMA observations was used to create a 3D visualization of the gas and dust immediately surrounding the star. A digital slice through this data showed the unexpected spiral structure. Although unusual, a similar spiral pattern was discovered in visible light recently around LL Pegasi. Upon analyzing the data, a hypothesis was drawn that the red giant star in R Sculptoris might be puffing gas toward an unseen binary companion star. The dynamics of this system might be particularly insightful because it may be giving clues as to how giant stars evolve toward the end of their lives -- and so release some constituent elements back to the interstellar medium so that new stars may form.

The Hubble Extreme Deep Field

The Hubble Extreme Deep Field: APOD: 2012 October 14 - The Hubble Extreme Deep Field


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2012 October 14


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Explanation: What did the first galaxies look like? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light. Pictured above, the XDF shows a sampling of some of the oldest galaxies ever seen, galaxies that formed just after the dark ages, 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only a few percent of its present age. The Hubble Space Telescope's ACS camera and the infrared channel of the WFPC3 camera took the image. Combining efforts spread over 10 years, the XDF is more sensitive, in some colors, than the original Hubble Deep Field (HDF), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) completed in 2004, and the HUDF Infrared completed in 2009. Astronomers the world over will likely study the XDF for years to come to better understand how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.

A View from Next Door

A View from Next Door: APOD: 2012 October 18 - A View from Next Door


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2012 October 18


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Explanation: Located just next door, Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Sun. A view from our interstellar neighbor a mere 4.3 light-years away is shown in this illustration. The Sun is at the upper right, a bright star against the background of the Milky Way. The crescent in the foreground is an artist's rendering of a planet now reported orbiting Alpha Centauri B, making it the closest known exoplanet. Discovered by astronomer Xavier Dumusque et al. using the planet hunting HARPS instrument to measure minute shifts in the star's spectrum for more than four years, the planet has approximately the same mass as Earth. But it orbits once every 3.2 days, about 0.04 times the Earth-Sun distance from its parent star. That puts it well outside the habitable zone, much too close to Alpha Cen B, a star only a little cooler than the Sun. Still, estimates indicate that planetary orbits would be stable within the habitable zone of Alpha Cen B, at about half the Earth-Sun distance ...

Merging NGC 2623

Merging NGC 2623: APOD: 2012 October 19 - Merging NGC 2623


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2012 October 19


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Explanation: NGC 2623 is really two galaxies that are becoming one. Seen to be in the final stages of a titanic galaxy merger, the pair lies some 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation Cancer. The violent encounter between two galaxies that may have been similar to the Milky Way has produced widespread star formation near a luminous core and along eye-catching tidal tails. Filled with dust, gas, and young blue star clusters, the opposing tidal tails extend well over 50,000 light-years from the merged nucleus. Likely triggered by the merger, accretion by a supermassive black hole drives activity within the nuclear region. The star formation and its active galactic nucleus make NGC 2623 bright across the spectrum. This sharp cosmic snapshot of NGC 2623 (aka Arp 243) is based on Hubble Legacy Archive image data that also reveals even more distant background galaxies scattered through the field of view.

The Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula: APOD: 2012 October 21 - The Horsehead Nebula





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2012 October 21




See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
 the highest resolution version available.
The Horsehead Nebula
Credit & Copyright:
Nigel Sharp
(NOAO),
KPNO,
AURA,
NSF

Explanation:
One of the most identifiable nebulae in the sky,
the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, is part of a large, dark,
molecular cloud.

Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first
discovered on a
photographic plate in the late 1800s.

The red glow originates from
hydrogen
gas predominantly behind the nebula, ionized by the nearby bright star
Sigma Orionis.

The darkness of the
Horsehead is caused mostly by thick
dust,
although the lower part of the
Horsehead's neck casts a shadow to the left.

Streams of gas leaving
the nebula are funneled by a strong
magnetic field.

Bright spots in the
Horsehead Nebula's base are
young stars just in the process of forming.

Light takes about 1,500 years to reach us from the
Horsehead Nebula.

The
above image was taken with the
0.9-meter telescope at
Kitt Peak National Observatory.





NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda

NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda: APOD: 2012 October 24 - NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda


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2012 October 24


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Explanation: The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of neighboring spiral galaxy Andromeda (M31), 2.5 million light-years distant. Seen near the center of this gorgeous close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk, the bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. Its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy known as open or galactic clusters, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The Medusa Nebula

The Medusa Nebula: APOD: 2012 October 25 - The Medusa Nebula


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2012 October 25


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Explanation: Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.

Reflection Nebula vdB1

Reflection Nebula vdB1: APOD: 2012 October 26 - Reflection Nebula vdB1


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2012 October 26


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Explanation: Every book has a first page and every catalog a first entry. And so this lovely blue cosmic cloud begins the van den Bergh Catalog (vdB) of stars surrounded by reflection nebulae. Interstellar dust clouds reflecting the light of the nearby stars, the nebulae usually appear blue because scattering by the dust grains is more effective at shorter (bluer) wavelengths. The same type of scattering gives planet Earth its blue daytime skies. Van den Bergh's 1966 list contains a total of 158 entries more easily visible from the northern hemisphere, including bright Pleiades cluster stars and other popular targets for astroimagers. Less than 5 light-years across, VdB1 lies about 1,600 light-years distant in the constellation Cassiopeia. Also on this scene, two intriguing nebulae at the right show loops and outflow features associated with the energetic process of star formation. Within are extremely young variable stars V633 Cas (top) and V376 Cas.

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars: APOD: 2012 October 28 - Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars


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2012 October 28


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Explanation: This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of the Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, recorded at a resolution of about seven meters per pixel. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so Phobos will likely be shattered by stress caused by the relentless tidal forces, the debris forming a decaying ring around Mars.

Hunter's Moon over the Alps

Hunter's Moon over the Alps: APOD: 2012 November 3 - Hunter's Moon over the Alps


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2012 November 3


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Explanation: A Full Moonset can be a dramatic celestial sight, and Full Moons can have many names. Late October's Full Moon, the second Full Moon after the northern hemisphere autumnal equinox, has been traditionally called the Hunter's Moon. According to lore, the name is a fitting one because this Full Moon lights the night during a time for hunting in preparation for the coming winter months. In this scene, last week's Hunter's Moon shines with a rich yellow light, setting as dawn comes to the Italian Alps. Topping out at over 11,000 feet, the snowy peak known as Rochemelon glows, just catching the first reddened light of the rising Sun.

VdB 152: A Ghost in Cepheus

VdB 152: A Ghost in Cepheus: APOD: 2012 October 31 - VdB 152: A Ghost in Cepheus


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2012 October 31


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Explanation: Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition", mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 really is very faint. Far from your neighborhood on this Halloween Night, the cosmic phantom is nearly 1,400 light-years away. Also catalogued as Ced 201, it lies along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of a large molecular cloud, pockets of interstellar dust in the region block light from background stars or scatter light from the embedded bright star giving parts of the nebula a characteristic blue color. Ultraviolet light from the star is also thought to cause a dim reddish luminescence in the nebular dust. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud's velocity. This deep telescopic image of the region spans about 7 light-years.

Planetary Nebula PK 164 31

Planetary Nebula PK 164 31: APOD: 2012 October 30 - Planetary Nebula PK 164 31


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2012 October 30


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Explanation: Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The bubble of expanding gas pictured above is the planetary nebula PK 164 +31.1, the remnants of the atmosphere of a Sun-like star expelled as its supply of fusion-able core hydrogen became depleted. Visible near the center of the nebula is what remains of the core itself -- a blue-hot white dwarf star. This particularly photogenic planetary nebula shows intricate shells of gas likely expelled at different times toward the end the star's demise, and whose structure is not fully understood. This deep image of PK 164 +31.1 from the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain shows many other stars from our own Milky Way Galaxy as well as several galaxies far in the distance. PK 164 +31, also known as Jones-Emberson 1, lies about 1,600 light years away toward the constellation of the Wildcat (Lynx). Due to its faintness (magnitude 17) and low surface brightness, the object is only visible with a good-sized telescope. Although the expanding nebula will fade away over the next few thousand years, the central white dwarf may well survive for billions of years -- to when our universe may be a very different place.

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula: APOD: 2012 October 29 - The Red Spider Planetary Nebula





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2012 October 29




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The Red Spider Planetary Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright:
Carlos Milovic,
Hubble Legacy Archive,
NASA

Explanation:
Oh what a
tangled web
a planetary nebula can weave.

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula
shows the complex structure that can result when a
normal star ejects
its outer gases and becomes a
white dwarf star.

Officially tagged
NGC
6537, this two-lobed symmetric
planetary nebula
houses one of the
hottest white dwarfs ever observed,
probably as part of a binary star system.

Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center,
have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second.

These
winds expand the
nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot
gas and
dust to collide.

Atoms
caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the
above representative-color picture by the
Hubble Space Telescope.

The
Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer
(Sagittarius).

Its distance is not well known but has been
estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years.




A Halo for NGC 6164

A Halo for NGC 6164: APOD: 2012 October 27 - A Halo for NGC 6164


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2012 October 27


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Explanation: Beautiful emission nebula NGC 6164 was created by a rare, hot, luminous O-type star, some 40 times as massive as the Sun. Seen at the center of the cosmic cloud, the star is a mere 3 to 4 million years old. In another three to four million years the massive star will end its life in a supernova explosion. Spanning around 4 light-years, the nebula itself has a bipolar symmetry. That makes it similar in appearance to more familiar planetary nebulae - the gaseous shrouds surrounding dying sun-like stars. Also like many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164 has been found to have an extensive, faint halo, revealed in this deep telescopic image of the region. Expanding into the surrounding interstellar medium, the material in the halo is likely from an earlier active phase of the O star. The gorgeous skyscape is a composite of narrow-band image data highlighting the glowing gas, and broad-band data of the surrounding starfield. NGC 6164 is 4,200 light-years away in the southern constellation of Norma.

Methone: Smooth Egg Moon of Saturn

Methone: Smooth Egg Moon of Saturn: APOD: 2012 November 6 - Methone: Smooth Egg Moon of Saturn


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2012 November 6


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Explanation: Why is this moon shaped like a smooth egg? The robotic Cassini spacecraft completed the first flyby ever of Saturn's small moon Methone in May and discovered that the moon has no obvious craters. Craters, usually caused by impacts, have been seen on every moon, asteroid, and comet nucleus ever imaged in detail -- until now. Even the Earth and Titan have craters. The smoothness and egg-like shape of the 3-kilometer diameter moon might be caused by Methone's surface being able to shift -- something that might occur were the moon coated by a deep pile of sub-visual rubble. If so, the most similar objects in our Solar System would include Saturn's moons Telesto, Pandora, Calypso, as well as asteroid Itokawa, all of which show sections that are unusually smooth. Methone is not entirely featureless, though, as some surface sections appear darker than others. Although flybys of Methone are difficult, interest in the nature and history of this unusual moon is sure to continue.