Astronomy Picture of the Day—20190215

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 February 15

SolarSystem Family Portait

ImageCredit: Voyager Project, NASA

Explanation:On Valentine's Day in 1990, cruising four billion miles from the Sun, theVoyager 1 spacecraft looked back one last time to make this first ever SolarSystem family portrait. The complete portrait is a 60 frame mosaic made from avantage point 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In it, Voyager's wide anglecamera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up withgas giant Neptune, the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right.Positions for Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are indicatedby letters, while the Sun is the bright spot near the center of the circle offrames. The inset frames for each of the planets are from Voyager's narrowfield camera. Unseen in the portrait are Mercury, too close to the Sun to bedetected, and Mars, unfortunately hidden by sunlight scattered in the camera'soptical system. Closer to the Sun than Neptune at the time, small, faintPluto's position was not covered.