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.
Spiral Galaxy Messier 77 (Header Image):
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured a magnificent face-on view of the barred spiral galaxy Messier 77. The image does justice to the galaxy's beauty, showcasing its glittering arms criss-crossed with dust lanes.
Jupiter In False-Color Infrared
This composite, false-color infrared image of Jupiter reveals haze particles over a range of altitudes, as seen in reflected sunlight.
A Zoom-In On Saturn's Satellite, Epimetheus
This zoomed-in view of Epimetheus, one of the highest resolution ever taken, shows a surface covered in craters, vivid reminders of the hazards of space.
A Galaxy With A Really Weird Name
Not all galaxies have the luxury of possessing a simple moniker or quirky nickname. This impressive galaxy imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is one of the unlucky ones, and goes by a name that looks more like a password for a computer: 2XMM J143450.5+033843.
Looking Up At The Milky Way
This image of a star-filled sky comes from one of the deep-sky 4k fish-eye cameras located at ESO's Paranal Observatory, in the Atacama Desert in Chile. At the bottom of the image runs the dusty band of the Milky Way Galaxy.