Tessera
Folgen

James Tuttle Keane

@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social

planetary scientist 🪐 science illustrator 🎨 trekkie 🖖 dog dad 🐶 Pasadena 🌹 views are my own 🏳️‍🌈 he/him

278 Posts2611 Follower333 Folgt
Paul Voosen@voosen.me · 6d ago

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:

NASA’s New Horizons mission may shut down two instruments over lack of funding

Decision risks “incalculable loss” of data from the edge of the Sun’s influence, scientists say

science.org

Paul Byrne@theplanetaryguy.com · 3w ago

I have a new paper out! Over the weekend I'll do a thread on what the Solar System can tell us about rocky exoplanets— but for now, enjoy this to-scale set of cross sections I made of the rocky worlds in *this* system! (They're all different, but still all variations on a theme...)

Interior structure models of Earth, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and Io, all shown to scale and key elements labelled.
Dr. Laci Brock 🪐@stellerarts.com · last mo.

Calling space artists of all ages and skill level. Consider submitting to TAPS, it is free! The show is run by amazing grad student volunteers. The show is held in Tucson, so I will be submitting and attending again. 🐡🔭🧪

The Art of Planetary Science@artofptys.bsky.social · last mo.

TAPS is now on Bluesky! We are excited to announce that TAPS is back for 2027! Submissions are open now. TAPS 2027 will feature both data art and fine art with this year’s theme being “As We Float on By: 50 Golden Years of Voyager”

ESA Space Science@science.esa.int · last mo.

BepiColombo is almost arriving at Mercury... but first, 👋 MPO and Mio must say farewell to their 'trusty engine' MTM (Mercury Transfer Module) 📺Watch live with us on 3 September, 13:45 CEST 👉 www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...

ESA Operations@operations.esa.int · last mo.

Mercury, here we go! ☀️🌑🛰️ Watch @esa.int / #JAXA #BepiColombo MTM separation live on 3 September and witness the first critical step in a never-before-seen planetary arrival. 💫 Click here for more info 👉 www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup... @science.esa.int

iucounu@iucounu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay,

Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

During the recent Total Solar Eclipse the South Korean Danuri spacecraft obtained a nice view of Earth from Lunar orbit with the Moons shadow just visible on Earth. Here is their image, with attribution added, my colorized version and the nearly simultaneous EPIC-DSCOVR image used for the color.

This is a reduced version of the photo released today by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Earth is seen from Lunar orbit during the recent Total Solar eclipse. The Moon is barely showing shadows behind the sunlit surfaces, and the shadow of the Moon itself is just at the horizon, or perhaps 'Limb' better suits an orbital view. One very wide shadow shows a fuzzy edge on a distant rise. I added the attribution. This is my version of the Danuri Lunar orbiter photo, with color added. I combined their Earth photo with a color EPIC-DSCOVR image made at about the same time, rotated a little in 3D to better match the Danuri viewing angle for compositing. The sharpness of the B&W original is preserved with the DSCOVR full Earth photo mostly used for the color values. I also prefer this orientation with the foreground Moon at the bottom.This is the EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) image from the DSCOVR satellite made at close to the same time as the Danuri image, shown in reduced form but otherwise as released. The exposure is naturally for the sunlit Earth and clouds. The Moon shadow's wide peripheral zone of gradual darkening, the 'penumbra' is where the illumination decreases as more of the Sun is eclipsed. At this time the outermost shadow area was near the Great Lakes, from this perspective a circular zone of that radius thus surrounds the progressively underexposed zone around the Moon shadow. If the exposure were adjusted to define the actual umbra, or zone of totality, the resulting small black dot in the image , about 30 percent the size of the underexposed portion seen here, would be surrounded by the greatly overexposed fully sunlit rest of the world.
James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Stephanie Menten—there are some unusual pits and troughs on the satellites of the ice giants. Could thermal erosion—where (cryo)lava flows melt the substrate and leave a depression—be responsible? Modeling works for Triton; less so for Ariel, where tectonics may be required. #AOGS2026

A photograph of my notebook showing a sketch summary of Stephanie Menten’s talk at AOGS. Most of the sketch is summarizing how thermal erosion works with a series of cross sections. Top: a lava flow (in red) erupts on the surface and flows right. Middle: as the lava flows, the turbulent hot lava warms and melts the substrate. Bottom: as the melt cools, it can sink into the eroded depression left from the melting. The result is a pit or trough in the middle of the flow. Beneath this are some simple sketches of Uranus’s moon, Ariel, and Neptune’s moon, Triton. Both exhibit pits. Their modeling suggests this process may be effective on Triton, but less so on Ariel (where tectonics might need to help).
James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Christos Ntinos—Developing a new “super resolution” Cassini VIMS map of Enceladus. The map can provide insight about physical properties (grain size, crystallinity, etc.) which are useful for both science and future exploration—like the ESA L4 mission concept. #AOGS2026

A photograph of my notebook showing a sketch of Christos Ntinos’s talk at AOGS 2026. The sketch shows a render of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, with the Cassini spacecraft, flying by an imaging the surface with its hyper spectral VIMS instrument. The beam coming from Cassini is shown as a rainbow scanning the surface. On the left-hand side of insults, I’ve shown a false color version of the analysis which shows some interesting patterns associated with the tiger stripes. Beneath the render of Enceladus is a artist concept for the future ESA L4 mission that might one-day land on the surface. Here, I show it with the southern hemisphere of Saturn, peeking over the horizon, and interrupting Tiger stripe with jets coming out of it over to the right. 
James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Shuang Yang—Chang’e 7 will land near the Moon’s south pole Shackleton crater later this year and deploy (via tether) a seismometer that is planned to survive for 8 years. This might be the first node of a long-lived *international* geophysical network! #AOGS2026

A photograph of my notebook showing a sketch of Shuang Yang (Chinese Academy of Science) talk at AOGS. It shows a low, oblique shot of the Chang’e 7 lander, landed on the Moon, as it lowers its seismometers (SP + VBB) to the surface of the Moon from the bottom of the lander. The seismometer will survive up to 8 years through use of an RHU.
James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ralph Lorenz—Huygens showed that Titan can be wet, even at low latitudes. As Dragonfly flies across Titan, the odds it’ll land in mud are low (<1%), and if so, the stickiness will be again to sticky wheat dough (and Dragonfly could still takeoff). #AOGS2026

A photograph of a sketch in my notebook summarizing Ralph Lorenz’s talk at AOGS2026. The pen and pencil sketch shows two spacecraft on the surface of Titan: Huygens and Dragonfly (loosely to scale). The two grey spacecraft sit on a rock littered orange surface with a yellow hazy sky behind them. Next to Hogan’s, I have a zoom in the regular showing how the acoustic sensor suggested that the soil was damp, with liquid sweating out of it. On the right, I show a little insect of some reel, analog dunes, which very rarely can have intradune lakes form in particular particularly rainy seasons. Situations such as this are predicted to be very rare for Titan, but the Dragonfly mission is planned to handle it.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

51 years ago I painted a trio of Viking related works for NASA HQ including the widely reproduced one of the landing on Mars. I have reimagined the Landing portrayal in updated form using digital methods of visualization and painting. I chose the same angle but with reality replacing anticipation.

This oil painting portrays the Viking 1 landing on Mars, which appeared in countless publications. The story of this work is relayed in an earlier post and is shown here for comparison with the new portrayal of this very view, showing the event as it would have appeared. This 1975 anticipatory painting was done with oils on a gesso smoothed 16 X 20 canvas panel, using traditional art methods including a tracing paper guide featured earlier. This work shows in retrospect my ideal of the 'spirit of space art', showing something of a summary of what is known of the subject while conveying what it is about the subject's known or theorized attributes that I find visually compelling. The new digital painting updates that visual impression with one based on our current knowledge. The new digital work was also done at the same size as this one was for possible printing purposes, 16 by 20 inches at 300 DPI. #Sciart In 1976 the pair of Viking spacecraft orbiter/lander combos were sent to Mars. Before Viking, Mars was still largely a place of our imaginations, an unknown that we wrote stories about then studied from Earth and space. The dominance of cratered terrain on the portions of Mars photographed by Mariners 4, 6 and 7 gave an initially Lunar impression of that world, which changed during the development of the Viking lander after Mariner 9 revealed the planet. The first landing was aimed for a flat flood plain, judged as a decent place to search for life. The landing date was July 4, however the intended site appeared too rough for comfort in the high quality orbiter photos, causing the landing to wisely be delayed. A smoother site further 'down stream' was found using photo and radar data. The landing proceeded quite nominally, a magnificent achievement that apparently accounted for what it had to and made it the first time. The first photo from the surface was a look at a footpad to see how solid the 'footing' appeared. Then a moderate resolution panorama of the surroundings was obtained, first showing the rocks, hills, dunes-and bright sky. The latter was my biggest surprise as a space artist. The adjustments to the color balance of the later photos were gradually narrowed down. The ubiquitous dust is planet wide, suspended in the air and coloring the sky a luminous tan ochre. This digital painting shows the view a meter above the surface seeing the lander briefly kicking up dust less than a second before touchdown with the footpads 1.4 meters high. The landing rockets were designed with many nozzles to disturb the surroundings as little as possible. The nearby disturbed dust resembles in color that of the sky. We are 6 meters away from the center of the lander. field of view is 60 degrees, we are looking Northwest with the Sun and Earth off the frame to the left. This is a digital art update of the pre mission oil painting I did for NASA HQ 1n 1975. #Sciart
Casey Dreier@caseydreier.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is why I believe using Endurance-A's science goals are so important to consider in this study. If NASA wants to send a mission to the surface, and it consumes nuclear stockpiles, then let's make sure the science is worth the cost.

SpaceNews @spacenewsinc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sending repurposed Mars rover to the moon could cost more than $1 billion Converting an engineering model of a Mars rover into an actual lunar rover could cost NASA more than $1 billion, an estimate strongly rejected by the agency’s administrator....

Sending repurposed Mars rover to the moon could cost more than $1 billion

Converting an engineering model of a Mars rover into an actual lunar rover could cost NASA more than $1 billion, an estimate strongly rejected by the agency’s administrator.

spacenews.com

James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Episode 1 is of my friend’s new documentary about Pangea is out now on YouTube! youtu.be/RY8mipBWjyw?...

How the Formation of Pangea Changed the World

YouTube video by PBS Eons

youtu.be

James Tuttle Keane@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hey #SDCC! You like geology and paleontology? Come see my friend @paleoparadox.bsky.social in their brand new PBS documentary about Pangea! Free premiere tomorrow (Saturday) at 10AM and 11AM. 🌋⚒️ digitalgym.org/movies/eons-...

The cover art for “Eons: Life and Death on Pangea.” The title is in a large white font across the poster, with an ancient creature and erupting volcano in the background.
Riding With Robots@ridingrobots.bsky.social · 2mo ago

One of NASA's twin Mars-bound ESCAPADE spacecraft captured Earth and the Moon from 363K miles (584K km) away. In visible light, both appear as slim crescents. But switch to thermal infrared and it’s a different picture... 1/2

Against black space, Earth appears at left as a thin white-green crescent lit along its right edge. The Moon, slightly smaller and dimmer, sits at upper right as a matching tan crescent lit on the same side. Only a sliver of each world catches sunlight; the rest of both disks is lost in darkness.In infrared, Earth glows with heat represented by warm colors, while the Moon remains mostly dark.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I will show my Viking related art in a slow trickle over the next few days, as there is a fair amount of it and a new one is coming. This is a pre mission oil painting done for then USGS Astrogeology branch chief Jack McCauley, based on his anticipations of how the landing site could appear.

This mid 70s oil painting attempts to summarize a leading Astrogeologist's idea of what the surface of Mars in the general intended landing zone on a wide flood plain might look like. Jack McCauley familiarized me with his work in the coastal deserts of Peru and photos of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, places where likely Mars like surface features could most be seen on Earth. Streamlined 'gravel bars' preserve an ancient wash, with blowing dust filling some of the deeper winding channels. Small impact craters continued to form since the climate dried up. The dark sky suggests the anticipated visual appearance at the known atmospheric density, of course not accounting tor the eternal dust pall that actually ended up brightening the daytime sky. The lander was based on photos of models available at the time. #Sciart