ageofdestruction:

see you shake: Saturn, photographed 10 times by Hubble Space Telescope, February 2005.

Note Saturn’s polar aurora. From Proposal 10156, a study of Saturn’s magnetosphere and auroral processes in concert with Cassini. 

Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScl. Animation: AgeOfDestruction.

ageofdestruction:

long halloween: Saturn, rings, and Mimas, photographed by Cassini, 31st October 2005.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

what are days for?: Pandora and Saturn’s rings in minimalist mode, photographed by Cassini, 10th December 2005.

More Space Minimalism.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

hounds: Jupiter and Ganymede, photographed by Hubble Space Telescope, April 2007.

Ganymede is just about to vanish behind the limb of Jupiter. See also: Ganymede and Jupiter, photographed by New Horizons.

From Proposal 10468.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScl.

ageofdestruction:

calme: Titan, photographed by Cassini, 29th November 2012.

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres

— Paul Verlaine.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

shamal: Saturn’s E-Ring, photographed by Cassini, 14th July 2011.

The E ring, second furthest out of Saturn’s rings, is made up of particles ejected from Enceladus’ cryovolcanos.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

tick: Neptune and Triton, photographed 5 times by Hubble Space Telescope, August 2002.

Note that Triton has a retrograde orbit, opposite to the direction of the planet’s spin. More gifs. More Neptune. More Triton.

Contrast decreased for reasons of art.

[From Proposal 9393].

Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScl. Animation: AgeOfDestruction.

ageofdestruction:

what does your soul look like?: Saturn’s F ring, photographed 39 times by Cassini, 18th October 2012.

More of the F ring. More gifs. More Space Minimalism.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI. Animation: AgeOfDestruction.

ageofdestruction:

gypsy: Rings and moons of Saturn, photographed by Cassini, 31st December 2005.

Nominally a photograph of the small moon Polyduces, which is not obviously visible. Polyduces is, however, co-orbital with Dione, which could be the otherwise unidentified moon at bottom.

See also: the dark (animated)and more space minimalism.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

distance: Dione and Titan, photographed by Cassini, 6th November 2011.

Dione is 135,000km away from Cassini. Since Titan is actually almost 5 times as large as Dione, but here appears about 2/3rds the size, I’d estimate that Titan is about 1,000,000km away.

More Dione. More Titan.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

arma virumque cano: Dione, photographed by Cassini, 18th May 2010.

The large crater at centre is Aeneas, at 15N 45W, named for the Trojan hero of Virgil’s Aenid. The canyon system at bottom right is the Tibur Chasmata, with the Latium and Larissa Chasma above it, all named for locations appearing in the Aenid. The double craters at top left are Romulus and Remus. 

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

black page: Nominally a photograph of Saturn’s rings, taken by Cassini, 30th August 2009.

In The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, an 18th century novel by Laurence Sterne that in some ways prefigures the modernist and postmodernist literary techniqures of some two hundred years later, a single page printed in solid black is used to mark the death of a friend.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

luminous: Minimalist view of Saturn’s rings, photographed by Cassini, 30th December 2005.

Nominally a photograph of the moon Atlas. More Space Minimalism. 

[“Forget your perfect offering: / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” — L. Cohen]

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.

ageofdestruction:

it dreamed of shelter: Tethys, photographed by Cassini, 3rd August 2005.

I don’t actually play Minecraft, but I watch a lot of youtube videos of it while doing other things (like this) and the other day I saw one where someone had thoughtfully included the fabled End Game Narrative. I actually found it quite touching:

“I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.

It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.

That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.

[…]

What did this player dream?

This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.”

— Julian Gough / Markus Persson

Image credit: NASA/ESA/SSI.