Solar Extremes

This is one of a series of Toy Worlds featured on this site.

Wander through 3D galleries with links to resources on this site and the Web.

Click the 360° image below to explore this Toy World, click the menu in the upper right for controls and click “i” buttons on/off for links to experiences. Use “portals” to visit other Toy Worlds.

You can also explore this on RoundMe.
If you have trouble seeing this on RoundMe, then try using an updated or different browser.

There is also a similar version in SecondLife.   Click the image below to explore it.

Solar Extremes SL

More Worlds …

Note: There are a LOT of videos below — it may take awhile to load. Please be patient! Also, many of the videos are 360° videos — be sure to look around!

Find out more about the Solar System

Sun

Parker Solar Probe Mission (NASA Goddard)

Find out more about the Sun

Mercury

Spacecraft Crashes into Mercury at Insane Speed (Nadia Drake, National Geographic)
Messenger’s final image before crashing into the surface of Mercury (Michelle Starr, CNET)
MESSENGER Mission (NASA)

Find out more about Mercury

Venus

High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC, Space Mission Analysis Branch, NASA Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate)

Find out more about Venus

Earth

The European Space Agency also has a YouTube Channel with 360° videos of each module.
Space Station 360 (European Space Agency)

Find out more about the Earth

Moon

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA)

History of the Exploration of Earth’s Moon (NASA)
The Apollo Missions (NASA)
The Apollo Program (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

Museum

A big fake Moon is slowly making its way around the Earth (Mike Wehner, BGR)
Museum of the Moon

Find out more about the Moon

Asteroid Bennu

OSIRIS-REx Mission (NASA)
101955 Bennu (NASA)

Find out more about Asteroids

Mars

See the earlier 360° videos of Mars from NASA/JPL…

Find out more about Mars

Asteroid Belt

Legacy of NASA’s Dawn, Near the End of its Mission (NASA/JPL)
Dawn Mission (NASA/JPL)

Find out more about the Asteroid Belt

Ceres

Dawn Mission: Ceres (NASA/JPL)
Dawn Mission (NASA/JPL)

Find out more about Ceres

Vesta

Dawn Mission: Vesta (NASA/JPL)
Dawn Mission (NASA/JPL)

Find out more about Vesta

Jupiter

Juno Mission (NASA)
Mission Juno (Southwest Research Institute)

In this animation the viewer is taken low over Jupiter’s north pole to illustrate the 3-D aspects of the region’s central cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. The movie utilizes imagery derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno mission during its fourth pass over the massive planet. Infrared cameras are used to sense the temperature of Jupiter’s atmosphere and provide insight into how the powerful cyclones at Jupiter’s poles work. In the animation, the yellow areas are warmer (or deeper into Jupiter’s atmosphere) and the dark areas are colder (or higher up in Jupiter’s atmosphere). In this picture the highest “brightness temperature” is around 260K (about -13°C) and the lowest around 190K (about -83°C). The “brightness temperature” is a measurement of the radiance, at 5 µm, traveling upward from the top of the atmosphere towards Juno, expressed in units of temperature.

NASA’s Juno Mission Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter’s North Pole (NASA)

Gaze Upon Jupiter’s Enormity in this Amazing Fly-By Video (Harley Locke, Wired)
NASA gives Jupiter the Van Gogh treatment with magnificent new image (Jackson Ryan, CNET)

Fiction 🙂

Find out more about Jupiter

Saturn

Here’s a more recent 2 minute video released by NASA/JPL on September 8th about the conclusion of the mission.

NASA/JPL Grand Finale Toolkit (timeline, status)
Cassini at Saturn YouTube Channel

Saturn’s famous hexagon may tower above the clouds (European Space Agency)
A Bizarre Structure Has Been Detected Towering High Above Saturn’s Hexagon (Michelle Starr, Science Alert)
Cassini data reveals hexagonal vortex rising above Saturn’s clouds (Brooks Hays, UPI)

Plateau problem (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Find out more about Saturn

Uranus

Home Run Pictures, working with NASA scientists, visualized engineering concepts for a space station that would dive into the upper atmosphere of the planet Uranus.

Find out more about Uranus

Neptune

Solar System Exploration: Neptune’s Moon Triton (NASA)
Solar System Exploration: Neptune’s Moons

Find out more about Neptune

Pluto

Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart (The New York Times)

New Horizons: Exploring Pluto and Beyond (Elizabeth Howell, Space.com)
New Horizons: NASA’s Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission (Official Site, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
New Horizons Mission (NASA)

Find out more about Pluto and the rest of the Kuiper Belt

Planetary System TRAPPIST-1

This 360° panorama depicts the surface of a newly detected planet, TRAPPIST-1d, part of a seven planet system some 40 light years away. You can explore this artist’s rendering of an alien world by moving the view using your mouse or your mobile device. The depiction is based on the latest scientific data about this planetary system, and this world’s sister planets can be seen as bright points of light in a dark sky. Each world is roughly in Earth’s size range, in terms of both mass and diameter. Further observations will be needed to determine whether any or all of these worlds might be habitable. — YouTube 360 Video Information, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Exoplanet Travel Bureau (NASA)

Find out more about Other Planetary Systems

Space Flight

Kennedy Space Center’s visitor complex offers the full outer space experience, even if you can’t get there yourself (CNBC)
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

Find out more about Space Flight