Post 8717
The Most Amazing Space Photos This Week!
Northern Lights Over the Aurora Ice Museum
Credit: John Chumack/Galactic Images
Green and purple northern lights shimmy over the Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks, Alaska in this image by astrophotographer John Chumack. He took the photo on March 24 during a minor geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal hole on the sun, which sent a stream of solar particles toward Earth. Those particles interact with Earth’s atmosphere to create colorful auroras. [View more of the album]
Coronal Loops Rotate Into View
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory
Coronal loops billow out of the sun’s surface in this view from NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory. This video shows the sun’s new active region rotating into view on March 27-28. The Solar Dynamics Observatory views the sun in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of light, which are invisible to the human eye, to monitor the sun’s corona for solar flares. This active region shows magnetic field lines protruding from the sun’s surface, but it has yet to produce any flares or solar storms. [View more of the album]
Galaxies Glow Through Cosmic Dust
Credit: Terry Hancock/Grand Mesa Observatory
Countless stars and galaxies scatter across the cosmic field in this deep-space image by astrophotographer Terry Hancock. The large spiral galaxy near the center of the image is Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy. Just below that is the Cigar Galaxy, Messier 82. Both are located around 12 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. These galaxies are seen through the faint haze of the Integrated Flux Nebula, a vast screen of interstellar dust and gas illuminated by starlight from the Milky Way. [View more of the album]
Migrating Martian Sands of Lobo Vallis
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
In this view from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, bands of bright ripples and dark dunes stretch across the surface of Mars. Over time, winds have pushed these sandy streaks, which are composed of basaltic sand, from the top of the image toward the bottom. This region of the Red Planet is known as Lobo Vallis and was named after a river on the Ivory Coast. [View more of the album]
Jupiter’s Swirling Storms
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Elaborate cloud patterns swirl on Jupiter’s northern hemisphere in this new view from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Juno captured the image on April 1 during its twelfth close flyby of Jupiter, when it was 7,659 miles (12,326 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill processed this color-enhanced view using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager. [View more of the album]
Antarctic Salad
Credit: DLR
German scientists have just collected — and eaten — their first batch of lettuce, cucumbers and radishes from a new greenhouse on Antarctica. The greenhouse, called EDEN ISS, was installed in February about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the Neumayer Station III facility. It is an experiment led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) designed to test the best methods for cultivating crops for astronauts.research station. [German Scientists Harvest Their 1st Antarctic Salad, and It Looks Amazing]
Cosmic Bling
Credit: Miguel Claro
A colorful deep-space photo reveals many features of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. In the top center of the image, three bright blue supergiant stars — Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak (from left to right) — form a stellar triplet also known as Orion’s Belt, located in the constellation Orion the Hunter. This image was captured from the Cumeada Observatory, headquarters of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve in Portugal. [Cosmic Bling! Colorful Nebulas Decorate Orion’s Belt in Stargazer Photo]
