dirty space news: self-eclipsing

last month at the dotAstronomy 5 conference in boston, someone pointed out to me the existence of bewbsinspace.tumblr.com.  that's right.  how had i not heard of this before?!?

for this installment of dirty space news, we explore one of the elusive female components of the universe.  do you see it?

finally - some female DSN!  (Credit: Scotty Degenhardt)

this graph was created by amateur astronomer scotty degenhardt and shows how light from jupiter's moon, Io, changes over time.  Io's orbital path around jupiter holds a puffed ring of dusty material. this graph shows Io "self-eclipsing," which happens when its atmosphere blocks light scattered from its own torus, producing the attractive curve shown above.