Post 8745
Image of the Day
Conjunction of the Moon and Venus
Credit: Victor Rogus
Monday, May 21, 2018: Two days after the new moon of May, a thin sliver of the waning crescent moon joined the bright planet Venus in the evening sky. Astrophotographer Victor Rogus captured this photo of their conjunction from Arcadia, Florida Thursday (May 17) night as the moon passed about 6 degrees south of Venus. “The pair struggled for my attention through mostly cloudy Florida skies,” Rogus said. “Still, a very beautiful sight in the west as the sky darkened.” — Hanneke Weitering
Stripes of Bedrock in a Martian Crater
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Wednesday, May 2, 2018: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view of eroded bedrock inside an ancient Martian crater using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. These geologic features can reveal clues about the planet’s history, including the presence of water. — Hanneke Weitering
Close-Up of Messier 66
Credit: Kevin M. Gill/NASA/ESA/Flickr
Tuesday, May 1, 2018: Bright stars and colorful nebulas glow in one of the galactic arms of Messier 66, an intermediate spiral galaxy located 36 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Also known as NGC 3627, this galaxy’s structure is somewhere between a barred and unbarred spiral galaxy. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill processed this image using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. — Hanneke Weitering
Hubble’s Lagoon Nebula in Infrared
Credit: NASA/ESA/STScl
An infrared view of the Hubble telescope’s28th anniversary photo reveals a sea of stars that hide behind colorful clouds of gas and dust when viewed in visible-light wavelengths. The Lagoon Nebula is an enormous star-forming region 4,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. It can be seen with the naked eye from dark-sky sites and appears about three times larger than the full moon in the night sky. — Hanneke Weitering
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Sean Doran
Friday, April 20, 2018: NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this closeup of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot surrounded by turbulent bands of clouds during a close flyby on April 1. This view combines three images taken over the course of 15 minutes. At the time, Juno was between 15,379 miles (24,749 kilometers) and 30,633 miles (49,299 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. — Hanneke Weitering
Jupiter’s Swirling Storms
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Monday, April 9, 2018: 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. — Hanneke Weitering
Migrating Martian Sands of Lobo Vallis
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Friday, April 6, 2018: 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. — Hanneke Weitering
Guam Spotted From Space
Credit: Roscosmos/Anton Shkaplerov via @Anton_Astrey
Thursday, April 5, 2018: The island of Guam bears a striking resemblance to a short-legged llama in this photo by Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov. He captured the image from 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth at the International Space Station. — Hanneke Weitering
Hangin’ Out in Space
Credit: NASA
Monday, April 2, 2018: NASA astronaut Drew Feustel dangles from the International Space Station some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth during a spacewalk on Thursday (March 29). Feustel and his crewmate NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold spent 6 hours and 10 minutes doing maintenance outside of the orbiting lab in what was the 100th spacewalk performed by crewmembers living aboard the space station. — Hanneke Weitering
Squiggly Saturnian Clouds
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill/Flickr
Friday, March 30, 2018: Squiggly clouds swirl on Saturn’s south polar vortex in this false-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. A ring of high-altitude clouds circles around a dark region where convective storms are raging in Saturn’s atmosphere. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill created this colorized image using raw data from Cassini. When Cassini captured the image on July 14, 2008, the spacecraft was approximately 243,000 miles (392,000 kilometers) from Saturn. — Hanneke Weitering
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
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
