February 18, 1997
Every year, the Earth returns to the same point in its orbit where it was when you were born.
A Big Cliff on Jupiter's Callisto Credit:
Birthday · February 18, 1997
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APOD published February 18, 1997. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Callisto's surface is not without fault. In fact, an explorer crossing the surface of this large moon of Jupiter would need climbing equipment to pass this large, recently discovered fault. The above picture was released last week and was taken in November 1996 by the robot spacecraft Galileo currently orbiting Jupiter. As the Sun illuminates Callisto's surface from the left, the unusual cliff or scarp stands out by the shadow it casts to the right. This cliff and others were probably formed when a large object collided with Callisto early in its history. Of the many visible craters in the above photograph, the smallest visible is about a football field across, while the largest is more than a kilometer.