Post 8691
Image of the Day
Great Pyramids Seen From Space
Credit: ESA
Thursday, March 29, 2018: Egypt’s famous Giza pyramid complex towers over the Western Desert in this view from the European Space Agency’s Proba-1 minisatellite. The largest of the three pyramids (bottom left) is the Great Pyramid of Giza. To its right is the slightly smaller Pyramid of Khafre, and the smallest of the three is the Pyramid of Menkaure. — Hanneke Weitering
Saturn’s ‘Ravioli’ Moon
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill/Flickr
Wednesday, March 28, 2018: Saturn’s tiny, ravioli-shaped moon Pan is pictured orbiting inside the planet’s ring system in this image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The strange moon resides in the Encke gap, a 200-mile-wide (325 kilometers) space in Saturn’s A ring. Pan, a so-called “shepherd moon,” keeps this area clear of ring particles with its gravitational pull. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill processed raw data from Cassini to create this colorized view of Pan. — Hanneke Weitering
Florida’s Wildfires Seen From Space
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jeff Schmaltz/LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team
Tuesday, March 27, 2018: As wildfires broke out in southern Florida last week, NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this view of the smoke plumes from space. This image taken on Friday (March 23) shows three fires that were believed to have started during a lightning storm on Wednesday (March 21). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the Aqua satellite detected several additional “hot spots,” or actively burning areas, which are outlined in red. — Hanneke Weitering
A Cosmic Work of Art
Credit: ESA/PACS/SPIRE/Hi-GAL/UNIMAP/L. Piazzo/La Sapienza/E. Schisano/G. Li Causi/IAPS/INAF
Monday, March 26, 2018: A star-forming region in the Milky Way resembles a Van Gogh painting in this stellar view from the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory. The image reveals a web of gas filaments, which astronomers believe are responsible for creating new stars. This region is located 7,500 light-years away in the neighborhood of the Carina Nebula. — Hanneke Weitering
Liftoff!
Credit: Joel Kowsky/NASA
Friday, March 23, 2018: A Soyuz rocket lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (March 21) to send three Expedition 55 crewmembers to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artymov will arrive at the orbiting lab this afternoon after a two-day trip in their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft. — Hanneke Weitering
Pink Milky Way Over Chile
Credit: Y. Beletsky (LCO)/ESO
Tuesday, March 20, 2018: Peppered with pink patches of ionized hydrogen gas, the Milky Way galaxy shines over the La Silla Observatory in Chile in this photo by European Southern Observatory photo ambassador Yuri Beletsky. The pink clouds are emission nebulas, or star-forming regions filled with hot, young stars. — Hanneke Weitering
An Elongated Coronal Hole
Credit: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
Monday, March 19, 2018: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory observed an enormous coronal hole on the sun last week. The elongated feature stretches over half the diameter of the sun. Coronal holes are regions where the sun’s magnetic field has opened up, allowing plasma known as solar wind to flow out into space. — Hanneke Weitering
