Archive November 2009
Chaitén Volcano
Eruption of Chile's Chaitén volcano,
generating a spectacular lightning storm.
Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaitén volcano in southern Chile as seen from Chana, some 30 kilometers north of the volcano. The mingling of lightning and ash is a so called dirty thunderstorm. These storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges, just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms.
Image Credit: Carlos Gutierrez/UPI/astroarts.org
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Tethys – Battered and Grooved
Saturn's Moon Tethys from Cassini.
A mosaic of four images of Tethys (1,071 kilometers across) taken on October 14, 2009, with Cassini’s narrow angle camera. The view is towards the Saturn-facing hemisphere.
Near center lies the large crater Penelope, overprinted by many smaller, younger impact sites.
Three smaller impact features of roughly similar size make a line to the right of Penelope. Those craters are (from top) Ajax, Polyphemus and Phemius.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Mosaic by astroarts.org
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