stellArium & ethereal counterparts

Venus transit 2012 June 5-6, 2012. (reuters) Venus Transit 2012 at Mauna Loa Hawaii as predicted by National Solar Observatory. Venus approaching the Pleiades on March 31st pic. by Jimmy Westlake, Colorado. Early April 2012, Venus passed directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. venus ruler of libra and taurus (manuscript) Venus (ruler), signs Taurus and Libra along with lunar mansions - Persia 17th c. this manuscript illustration has visual and symbolic correlations with Saraswati (goddess of learning, music and arts - guardian of the Earth) In Persian, Venus corresponds to ‘Anahita’ - the ‘immaculate’ & ‘pure’ one - in the Avesta, her main attributes were rivers. She embodied the fertilizing flow of water from the fountain in the stars. In ancient Iran Anahita was a Goddess worshipped as personification of pure water and eternal fire. She was like a wild river and was described as driving a chariot drawn by four w...

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image.   Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth. The huge storm churning through the atmosphere...