Our solar system has a very distinct planet and only one of them is a lively
green paradise of life the rest even though they're beautiful in their own ways
they also happen to be violent lonely haunting and dangerous places from scorching rustic
surfaces to eternal raging storms our solar system offers very vivid versions of
dystopian demiplanes thanks to probes and space observatories we're now able to have a close look
at earth's less habitable cousins and sometimes they offer spectacles that can be truly terrifying
welcome to Factnomenal and today let's gander at 10 terrifying images of our neighboring planets
Jupiter has always fascinated astronomers and researchers alike when the Hubble Telescope the
granddaddy of our space observatories turned its peering eye to the big brother of our solar system
the planet decided to have an eye-to-eye conversation with our telescope in April 2014
the beautiful yet haunting image of Jupiter peering back at us was made possible by
jupiter's moon ganymede while hubble was monitoring changes to the planet's great
red spot storm the 10 000 mile diameter eye was facing the camera and ganymede positioned itself
perfectly to cast a shadow to make the great red spot look like a giant eye looking back
at earth with ganymede itself forming the pupil of the eye for a moment only the king
of roman gods became a giant cyclops as it tried to intimidate us with its only eye
astronomers always referred to mars as a could have been planet cumulative evidence suggests that
during the ancient noaakian time period the surface environment of mars had liquid water
and may have been habitable for microorganisms but then again habitable conditions do not necessarily
indicate life and yet the images sent by the five rovers and multiple probes that have been sent to
mars have relentlessly toyed with our imaginations many of these images contain what could be termed
easter eggs that resemble things that are near impossible to occur naturally on an isolated
planet with dust storms a red rocky surface and these artificial looking structures mars does
awfully resemble a haunted town from the wild west era let's start with some classic horror
spiders yes in 2018 nasa's mars reconnaissance orbiter captured something truly terrifying on
the south pole of the red planet named after the roman god of war mars displayed the mighty
soldiers of the planet spiders but don't fret unlike in harry potter movies they can't eat you
as they aren't actual spiders these are actually ironiform terrains aeroform means spider-like
not spiders themselves these spider-like radiating mounds form when carbon dioxide ice below the
surface heats up and is released this is an actual seasonal process not seen here on earth like
dry ice on earth the carbon dioxide ice on mars sublimates as it warms and the gas becomes trapped
below the surface when the pressure is strong enough for carbon dioxide to break through the ice
it erupts as a jet of dust while gas leaves mars due to a lack of atmosphere to keep it around
the darker dust from underneath deposits around the vent with multi-directional streaks that
resemble spider-like etchings so no even if elon musk succeeds in establishing a colony on mars
you won't be facing martian spiders a lot james cameron's aliens game over man it's game over
another picture taken by the reconnaissance orbiter in early 2010 created hope for life
on planet mars albeit a very scary one in this image the illusion of dark trees
growing on red dust gives vibes of a bloody forest where death is waiting for you behind every corner
and trees are there just to silently witness your demise according to nasa's reconnaissance orbiter
team the truth is a lot more scientific than scary the martian trees are actually dark basaltic sand
pushed to the surface of sand dunes by sun heated solid carbon dioxide ice or dry ice sublimating
directly into vapor in contrast with the martian spiders these trees appear on the
north pole of the planet on and around the sand dunes that form a complete ring around the pole
these dunes are covered by a thin layer of reddish martian dust and patches of
dry ice in the martian spring the sun warms the ice causing it to sublimate
directly into vapor and the resulting gas dislodges surrounding dust and sand particles
the dark sand slides down the frosted portion of the dune and creates the illusion of martian woods
however mars has been towing with our martian invasion fears since long before the bloody
woods were found the very first terrifying image from mars which could be classified as
fuel for our nightmares was sent by the viking one probe in 1976 in an attempt to seek a good landing
site for its sister ship viking 2 the probe spotted something that could have had nasa say
nope and turn both ships around think of easter island statues and turn the scary dial up to 11
nasa spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face on mars surface in the image sent by the probe
an enormous head that spanned nearly two miles from end to end was staring back at the probe's
imaging device from a region called sidonia on the crimson planet unlike the long faces at
easter island this one perhaps wasn't artificial but it did have everybody's curiosity peaked the
sensation was short-lived however astronomers reckoned it was just another martian mesa common
enough around sidonia only this one had unusual shadows that made it look like an egyptian pharaoh
the teeny little bigfoot captured by the mars exploration rover spirit
in november 2007 was yet another example of the red planet playing pranks with our fears
the sasquatch shaped rock had nearly everybody believing for a split second
that there's some sort of primitive society of martians or that one must have existed in the
past the times online mocked the hype is it a rock a trick of martian light on the
eye or osama bin laden waving from his barren hideout 300 million miles from planet earth
but when the sasquatch failed to scare pesky earth robots away mars tried some really morbid warnings
in 2014 the curiosity rover's mast cam snapped an image of what appears to be a femur bone
on mars surface the planet must have got the idea of using that as a sign of possible violence from
stanley kubrick's 2001 a space odyssey the image did create a panic just not the kind
mars would have been hoping for the femur bone amidst the rubble of the red planet
rapidly spread among conspiracy theorists as proof that mars once harbored life prompting the space
agency to set the record straight nasa had to clarify that the thigh bone looking structure
was indeed just a regular mars rock mission science team members predicted that its shape was
likely sculpted by erosion from neither wind or water you nearly got us mars nearly
the red rock also tried to scare us with magic and mysticism as another image captured by
curiosity showed an uncannily spoon-shaped rock floating above the surface it even cast its own
spoon-shaped shadow on the ground below but as the kid told neo there is no spoon
nasa also confirmed there is no spoon it was just a weird mars vent effect a rock shaped by the wind
if that didn't scare you the next image will because it's not just a two-dimensional image but
a three-dimensional flyby in march 2018 the juno probe captured jupiter's poles in some stunning
images that nasa used to create a 3d flyby video of the turbulent atmosphere at jupiter's poles
juno was able to see the underlying structure of the massive cyclones that cover the planet
by using its infrared sensor the animation created by nasa is quite a close representation of the
scale of the storms and the massive valleys and the clouds seen here glowing brightly truly the
terrifying weather of jupiter makes earth's tsunamis and hurricanes look like child's play
throughout its seven-year mission the parker solar probe whipped by venus a total of seven times
using the planet's gravity to bend the spacecraft's orbit it allowed the parker
solar probe to fly closer and closer to the sun and study the dynamics of the solar wind close
to its source in july 2020 parker swung by venus for its third gravity assist and that's when its
imaging instrument whisper snapped a picture of venus surface that nasa wasn't expecting to
see the thick venusian atmosphere should have prevented the instrument from capturing any
photos of venus surface but the camera peered right through and that's when we had our first
look at the night side of venus specifically the highland region called the aphrodite terra where
the temperature is about 85 degrees fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding area by the way that's
still 860 degrees fahrenheit or 450 degrees celsius the image shows venus rocky surface
glowing like a piece of iron freshly pulled from the forge and that's the night side of
venus i would have my vacation elsewhere than our own clone of mustafar thank you very much
known primarily for its rings the second biggest yet lightest of all the planets saturn was first
properly photographed by the voyager program in 1980. that's when one of its moons mimas also
garnered a lot of attention for peculiar dent in its shape the dent known as the herschel crater
is an 80 mile wide crater that gives the moon its distinct look when the images of Mimas appeared
america was already deep into the Star Wars craze and the distinctive imagery of Mimas
made a lot of people believe that the Sith had a ride from their galaxy to conquer our home system
now it's believed that Mimas might be hiding a vast ocean underneath its surface
tell us in the comments what other scary sides of space you would like to see in the next
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