The Week's Coolest Space Photos
Every day satellites are zooming through space, snapping incredible pictures of Earth, the solar system and outer space. Here are the highlights from this week.
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In this classic Hubble image from 2000, the planetary nebula IC 418 glows like a multifaceted jewel with enigmatic patterns. IC 418 lies about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lepus.
A planetary nebula represents the final stage in the evolution of a star similar to our sun. The star at the center of IC 418 was a red giant a few thousand years ago, but then ejected its outer layers into space to form the nebula, which has now expanded to a diameter of about 0.1 light-year.
A Warped Ring In Our Milky Way
In a strange twist of science, astronomers using the Herschel Space Observatory have discovered that a suspected ring at the center of our galaxy is warped for reasons they cannot explain.
Astronomers aren't sure how rings like this form in galaxies but some theories suggest they arise out of gravitational disturbances with neighboring galaxies. New stars are thought to be forming in the dense gas making up the ring.
A 'Stellar' Galaxy
This image displays a galaxy known as ESO 486-21 (with several other background galaxies and foreground stars visible in the field as well).
ESO 486-21 is […] known to be in the process of forming new stars, which are created when large clouds of gas and dust (seen here in pink) within the galaxy crumple inwards upon themselves.
Curosity Rover Seen From Mars Orbit
The feature that appears bright blue at the center of this scene is NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
When the image was taken, Curiosity was partway between its investigation of active sand dunes lower on Mount Sharp, and "Vera Rubin Ridge," a destination uphill where the rover team intends to examine outcrops where hematite has been identified from Mars orbit.
The First Discovery Of A Dead Disk Galaxy
By combining the power of a "natural lens" in space with the capability of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made a surprising discovery — the first example of a compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disk-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang.
If you like to relax to the sight of stars and galaxies far far away, then you'd enjoy our selection of the coolest space photos from last week.
