The Week's Coolest Space Images
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.
A Ripple Of Blue (Header Image)
A ripple of bright blue gas threads through this galaxy like a misshapen lake system… The central galaxy streaked with color, IC 4870, was discovered by DeLisle Stewart in 1900 and is located approximately 28 million light-years away. It contains an active galactic nucleus: an extremely luminous central region so alight with radiation that it can outshine the rest of the galaxy put together.
Snow On The Red Planet
In early Martian summer, at the time NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this image, the dunes are almost free of their seasonal ice cover. Only pockets of ice protected in the shade most of the day remain. The North Pole of Mars is surrounded by a vast sea of sand dunes. In this dune field, the dunes are covered by a seasonal cap of dry ice in the winter.
A Dusty Starburst Galaxy (Illustration)
This artist's impression shows a dusty galaxy in the distant Universe that is forming stars at a rate much higher than in our Milky Way. New ALMA observations have allowed scientists to lift the veil of dust and see what was previously inaccessible — that such starburst galaxies have an excess of massive stars as compared to more peaceful galaxies.
Lightning On Jupiter (Illlustration)
This artist's concept of lightning distribution in Jupiter's northern hemisphere incorporates a JunoCam image with artistic embellishments. Data from NASA's Juno mission indicates that most of the lightning activity on Jupiter is near its poles.
The Tarantula Nebula
This gigantic star-forming region in the Milky Way's neighbour galaxy […] is the birthplace of an astonishing number of massive stars, some of which might have masses of up to 300 solar masses.
Mighty Odysseus
The most visually striking feature on Saturn's icy moon Tethys is Odysseus crater. An enormous impact created the crater, which is about 280 miles (450 kilometers) across, with its ring of steep cliffs and the mountains that rise at its center. Odysseus is on the leading hemisphere of Tethys (1,071 kilometers, or 665 miles across). In this image, north on Tethys is up.