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| 1. |  | 2003, 8 May Earth, Moon, and Jupiter, as Seen From Mars Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Orbiter Camera Malin Space Science Systems NASA / JPL / Malin Space Science Systems |
| 2. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1969 Earthrise sequence - Earth rises over lunar horizon NASA NASA (AS11-44-6553) |
| 3. |  | 2002, 8 February The Blue Marble NASA Visualization NASA NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights). |
| 4. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1991 (before) Satellite photograph of the earth, Red Sea, Africa, Arabia, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and wind patterns. United States Geological Service US Geological Service (Digital File:hcl00006) |
| 5. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1964, 28 July First U.S. Image of the Moon Digital image NASA NASA, NASA Solar System Collection, UID:SPD-SLRSY-2162, Image ID: 227263 Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by a U.S. spacecraft, on July 31, 1964 at 13:09 UT (9:09 AM EDT) about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar surface. The area photographed is centered at 13 S, 10 W and covers about 360 km from top to bottom. The large crater at center right is the 108 km diameter Alphonsus. Above it is Ptolemaeus and below it Arzachel. The terminator is at the bottom right corner. Mare Nubium is at center and left. North is at about 11:00 at the center of the frame. The Ranger 7 impact site is off the frame, to the left of the upper left corner. (Ranger 7, B001) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308 high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. |
| 6. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1992, 8 December Moon - False Color Mosaic Digital image NASA JPL, NASA Solar System Collection, UID: SPD-SLRSY-2088, Image ID: 227219 This false-color photograph is a composite of 15 images of the Moon taken through three color filters by Galileo's solid-state imaging system during the spacecraft's passage through the Earth-Moon system on December 8, 1992. When this view was obtained, the spacecraft was 425,000 kilometers (262,000 miles) from the Moon and 69,000 kilometers (43,000 miles) from Earth. The false-color processing used to create this lunar image is helpful for interpreting the surface soil composition. Areas appearing red generally correspond to the lunar highlands, while blue to orange shades indicate the ancient volcanic lava flow of a mare, or lunar sea. Bluer mare areas contain more titanium than do the orange regions. Mare Tranquillitatis, seen as a deep blue patch on the right, is richer in titanium than Mare Serenitatis, a slightly smaller circular area immediately adjacent to the upper left of Mare Tranquillitatis. Blue and orange areas covering much of the left side of the Moon in this view represent many separate lava flows in Oceanus Procellarum. The small purple areas found near the center are pyroclastic deposits formed by explosive volcanic eruptions. The fresh crater Tycho, with a diameter of 85 kilometers (53 miles), is prominent at the bottom of the photograph, where part of the Moon's disk is missing. |
| 7. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1992, 7 December False-color image of the Mare Tranquilitatis and Mare Serenitatis regions on the Moon. False-color image, Galileo Project NASA NASA / JPL / CALTECH |
| 8. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1992, 7 December Moon Digital image NASA NASA, Galileo, JPL, U.S. Geological Survey, NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection, UID: SPD-PHOTJ-PIA00405, Image ID: 109893 During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Moon. The Galileo spacecraft took these images on December 7, 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the image is the Tycho impact basin. The dark areas are lava rock filled impact basins: Oceanus Procellarum (on the left), Mare Imbrium (center left), Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquillitatis (center), and Mare Crisium (near the right edge). This picture contains images through the Violet, 756 nm, 968 nm filters. The color is 'enhanced' in the sense that the CCD camera is sensitive to near infrared wavelengths of light beyond human vision. The Galileo project is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. |
| 9. |  | David Malin n.d. The Moon, around the Crater Tycho Hand coated Platinum print on artist's paper Edwynn Houk Gallery ® Anglo-Australian Observatory [0810-21p/1114-9p/1620-8p] |
| 10. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2002, 3 December Total Eclipse of the Sun Digital image, Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope NASA NASA's Earth Observatory, Image ID: 134103 On December 3, 2002, people in Australia received a rare 32-second celestial show as the moon completely obscured the sun, creating a ring of light. Solar eclipses provide experts an opportunity to study the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona. This total eclipse was the first to cover Australian shores since 1976. The next is not predicted to occur for several more decades. While people in Australia were observing the solar eclipse, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft also had its eye on the sun. From its unique vantage point in space, scientists have been able to monitor the explosions on the sun that can impact us here on Earth. This image combines a photograph of the solar eclipse (showing the halo-like corona) with data taken by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope instrument aboard SOHO (showing the green inner regions). |
| 11. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2010, 30 March The Sun, A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO SDO/AIA image SDO - Solar Dynamics Observatory NASA SDO/AIA False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). AIA = Atmospheric Imaging Assembly |
| 12. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2010, 18 April The Sun SDO/AIA image SDO - Solar Dynamics Observatory NASA SDO/AIA - 193 20100418_000102, Images 2010/04/18 00:01:08 UT - 193 AIA = Atmospheric Imaging Assembly |
| 13. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2000, 28 February Fe XV (284 +) SOHO's EIT (Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) NASA NASA / SOHO's EIT (Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope), Courtesy of the EIT Consortium |
| 14. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. Coronal loops Digital image NASA NASA, NASA Solar System Collection, UID: SPD-SLRSY-191, Image ID: 227136 Extending above the photosphere or visible surface of the Sun , the faint, tenuous solar corona can't be easily seen from Earth, but it is measured to be hundreds of times hotter than the photosphere itself. What makes the solar corona so hot? Astronomers have long sought the source of the corona's heat in magnetic fields which loft monstrous loops of solar plasma above the photosphere. Still, new and dramatically detailed observations of coronal loops from the orbiting TRACE satellite are now pointing more closely to the unidentified energy source. Recorded in extreme ultraviolet light, this and other TRACE images indicate that most of the heating occurs low in the corona, near the bases of the loops as they emerge from and return to the solar surface. The new results confound the conventional theory which relies on heating the loops uniformly. This tantalizing TRACE image shows clusters of the majestic, hot coronal loops which span 30 or more times the diameter of planet Earth. |
| 15. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2004, 8 June Venus Transit Digital image NASA NASA, NASA Solar System Collection, UID: SPD-SLRSY-2403, Image ID: 227347 NASA's TRACE satellite captured this image of Venus crossing the face of the Sun as seen from Earth orbit. The last event occurred in 1882. The next Venus transit will be visible in 2012. |
| 16. |  | Selín Alejandro González Palomino 2012, 5 June Transit of Venus, taken in Toluca, Mexico Colour image Provided by the artist - Selín Alejandro González Palomino Courtesy of the photographer - www.facebook.com/SelinAlejandro |
| 17. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2004, June (data) Spicules: Jets on the Sun Digital image Source requested SST, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, LMSAL Imagine a pipe as wide as a state and as long as half the Earth. Now imagine that this pipe is filled with hot gas moving 50,000 kilometers per hour. Further imagine that this pipe is not made of metal but a transparent magnetic field. You are envisioning just one of thousands of young spicules on the active Sun. Pictured above is perhaps the highest resolution image yet of these enigmatic solar flux tubes. Spicules dot the above frame of solar active region 10380 that crossed the Sun in 2004 June, but are particularly evident as a carpet of dark tubes on the right. Time-sequenced images have recently shown that spicules last about five minutes, starting out as tall tubes of rapidly rising gas but eventually fading as the gas peaks and falls back down to the Sun. These images also indicate that the ultimate cause of spicules is sound-like waves that flow over the Sun's surface but leak into the Sun's atmosphere. This image was the "NASA - Astronomy Picture of the Day" - 2008, November 2. |
| 18. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2006, 29 October Saturn's Active North Pole Digital image NASA NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, NASA Solarsystem Collection, UID: SPD-SLRSY-4803, Image ID: 227533 A bizarre six-sided feature encircling the north pole of Saturn near 78 degrees north latitude has been spied by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. This image is one of the first clear images ever taken of the north polar region as seen from a unique polar perspective. Originally discovered and last observed by a spacecraft during NASA's Voyager flybys of the early 1980's, the new views of this polar hexagon taken in late 2006 prove that this is an unusually long-lived feature on Saturn. This image is the first to capture the entire feature and north polar region in one shot, and is also the first polar view using Saturn's thermal glow at 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the human eye) as the light source. This allows the pole to be revealed during the nighttime conditions presently underway during north polar winter. Previous images from Voyager and from ground-based telescopes suffered from poor viewing perspectives, which placed the feature and the north pole at the extreme northern limb (edge) of the planet. To see the deep atmosphere at night, the infrared instrument images the thermal glow radiating from Saturn+s depths. Clouds at depths about 75 kilometers (47 miles) lower than the clouds seen at visible wavelengths block this light, appearing dark in silhouette. To show clouds as features that are bright or white rather than dark, the original image has been contrast reversed to produce the image shown here. The nested set of alternating white and dark hexagons indicates that the hexagonal complex extends deep into the atmosphere, at least down to the 3-Earth-atmosphere pressure level, some 75 kilometers (47 miles) underneath the clouds seen by Voyager. Multiple images acquired over a 12-day period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 11, 2006, show that the feature is nearly stationary, and likely is an unusually strong pole-encircling planetary wave that extends deep into the atmosphere. This image was acquired on Oct. 29, 2006, from an average distance of 902,000 million kilometers (560,400 miles) above the cloud tops of Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, where this image was produced. |
| 19. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1981, 25 August Saturn's Rings NASA NASA Center: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Image: PIA01531 This Voyager 2 view, focusing on Saturn's C-ring (and to a lesser extent, the B- ring at top and left) was compiled from three separate images taken through ultraviolet, clear and green filters. On August 23, 1981, when it acquired these frames, Voyager 2 was 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from the planet. In general, C-ring material is very bland and gray, the color of dirty ice. Color differences between this ring and the B-ring indicate differing surface compositions for the material composing these complex structures. More than 60 bright and dark ringlets are evident here; the small, bland squares are caused by the removal of reseau (reference) marks during processing. |
| 20. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1982, 3 March (after) Surface photographs from the Soviet Venera 13 spacecraft. The first of the Venera missions to include a color TV camera and the first to succeed in obtaining pictures since Venera 10, the Venera 13 lander touched down on 3 March 1982. NASA NASA / Soviet Venera 13 Project (Venus) |
| 21. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1996, 3 June Hemispheric View of Venus Centered at the North Pole Digital image, Imaging Radar NASA NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA. Data processed by JPL, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, AZ. UID: SPD-PHOTJ-PIA00007, Image ID: 118029 The hemispheric view of Venus, as revealed by more than a decade of radar investigations culminating in the 1990-1994 Magellan mission, is centered on the North Pole. The Magellan spacecraft imaged more than 98% of Venus at a resolution of about 100 meters; the effective resolution of this image is about 3 km. A mosaic of the Magellan images (most with illumination from the west) forms the image base. Gaps in the Magellan coverage were filled with images from the Earth-based Arecibo radar in a region centered roughly on 0 degree latitude and longitude, and with a neutral tone elsewhere (primarily near the south pole). The composite image was processed to improve contrast and to emphasize small features, and was color-coded to represent elevation. Gaps in the elevation data from the Magellan radar altimeter were filled with altimetry from the Venera spacecraft and the U.S. Pioneer Venus missions. An orthographic projection was used, simulating a distant view of one hemisphere of the planet. |
| 22. |  | 1989, 21 August Close up view of the Great Dark Spot, Neptune. Narrow-angle camera, Voyager Project NASA NASA / JPL / CALTECH (NASA Id: P-34672C) |
| 23. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1992-1999 Montage of images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot taken by HST between 1992 and 1999 NASA NASA / Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA) and Amy Simon (Cornell U.), (NASA Id: STScI-PRC99-29) |
| 24. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1997, 6 May Io Eclipse/Volcanic Eruption Digital image, Solid-State Imaging NASA NASA, PIRL / University of Arizona, NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection, UID: SPD-PHOTJ-PIA00704, Image ID: 119114 This image was acquired while Io was in eclipse (in Jupiter's shadow) during Galileo's eighth orbit, and reveals several dynamic processes. The most intense features are red, while glows of lesser intensity are yellow or green, and very faint glows appear blue in this color-coded image. The small red or yellow spots mark the sites of high-temperature magma erupting onto the surface in lava flows or lava lakes. This image reveals a field of bright spots near Io's sub-Jupiter point (right-hand side of image). The sub-Jupiter hemisphere always faces Jupiter just as the Moon's nearside always faces Earth. There are extended diffuse glows on the equatorial limbs or edges of the planet (right and left sides). The glow on the left is over the active volcanic plume Prometheus, but whereas Prometheus appears to be 75 kilometers (46.6 miles) high in reflected light, here the diffuse glow extends about 800 kilometers (497 miles) from Io's limb. This extended glow indicates that gas or small particles reach much greater heights than the dense inner plume. The diffuse glow on the right side reaches a height of 400 kilometers (249 miles), and includes a prominence with a plume-like shape. However, no volcanic plume has been seen at this location in reflected light. This type of observation is revealing the relationships between Io's volcanism, atmosphere and exosphere. Taken on May 6, 1997, north is toward the top. The image was taken with the clear filter of the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft at a range of 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles). |
| 25. |  | NASA, Hubble Space Telescope 1995, 1 April Stellar Hubble space telescope image NASA NASA [# Center: HSTI, # Center Number: PR95-44D, # GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2000-001947] |
| 26. |  | NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI, AURA 1999, 1 April Stars in the Tarantula Nebula Hubble space telescope image NASA NASA [#Center: HSTI, # Center Number: PR99-12, # GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2000-000946] |
| 27. |  | Dr. Jeonghee Rho (SSC/Caltech) n.d. The Trifid Nebula dotted with glowing stellar incubator Spitzer space telescope image NASA NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Rho (SSC/Caltech) |
| 28. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 1990, 4 October Window-Curtain - Structure of the Orion Nebula Revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Digital image NASA NASA Hubble Space Telescope Collection, UID: SPD-HUBBLE-STScI-199 0-26a Recent images made with the Wide Field Camera on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have revealed the structure of a thin sheet of gas located at the edge of the famous "Great Nebula" in Orion, an estimated 1500 light years from Earth. Astronomers, who compare the appearance of this sheet of gas with that of a rippled window curtain, report that this emission traces the boundary between the hot, diffuse interior of the nebula and an adjacent dense cool cloud. The sheet is seen in light emitted by atoms of gaseous sulfur (shown in red in the photograph). This emission is strongest under conditions which are intermediate between those in the interior of nebula and those in the dense cloud. The sulfur emission is seen to break into filamentary and clumpy structures with sizes down to the limit of what the telescope can show. In contrast, emission from gaseous oxygen and hydrogen (shown as blue and green, respectively) is favored in the interior of the nebula itself, and is distributed much more smoothly in the image. The Orion Nebula is a "stellar nursery" - a region where new stars are forming out of interstellar gas. The emission from the nebula is powered by the intense ultraviolet light from a cluster of particularly hot and luminous stars. The sulfur emission seen in the photograph is coming from the region where the light from these stars is "boiling off" material from the face of the dense cloud. This is the very cloud from which the hot stars formed, and is known to harbor additional ongoing star formation. Astronomers say that this is a good example of a case where, despite the spherical aberration that has hobbled many of the scientific programs which the Hubble Space Telescope was expected to carry out, the telescope can still be used to obtain scientifically interesting data with clarity far exceeding that normally possible from the ground. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology. |
| 29. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2005, 13 September Hubble Catches Scattered Light from the Boomerang Nebula Digital image NASA NASA Hubble Space Telescope Collection, ESA, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and the WFPC2 Science Team, UID: SPD-HUBBLE-STScI-200 5-25b This image of the Boomerang Nebula was taken in 1998 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 instrument. Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. The high-resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow Tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The diffuse bow-tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery. The general bow-tie shape of the Boomerang appears to have been created by a very fierce 500,000 kilometer-per-hour wind blowing ultracold gas away from the dying central star. The star has been losing as much as one-thousandth of a solar mass of material per year for 1,500 years. This is 10 to 100 times more than in other similar objects. |
| 30. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. Spiral galaxy NGC 4414. Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) NASA Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA) (Id: STScI-PRC99-25) |
| 31. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. Wisps Surrounding the Horsehead Nebula Digital image Star Shadows Remote Observatory (SSRO) © SSRO The famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion is not alone. A deep exposure shows that the dark familiar shaped indentation, visible just below center, is part of a vast complex of absorbing dust and glowing gas. To bring out details of the Horsehead's pasture, amateur astronomers at the Star Shadow Remote Observatory in New Mexico, USA fixed a small telescope on the region for over seven hours filtering out all but a very specific color of red light emitted by hydrogen. They then added the image to a full color frame taken over three hours. The resulting spectacular picture details an intricate tapestry of gaseous wisps and dust-laden filaments that were created and sculpted over eons by stellar winds and ancient supernovas. The Horsehead Nebula lies 1,500 light years distant towards the constellation of Orion. Two stars from the Orion's Belt can be found in the above image. This image was the "NASA - Astronomy Picture of the Day" - 2008, April 6. |
| 32. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. X-Rays from the Cat's Eye Nebula Digital image NASA X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI Haunting patterns within planetary nebula NGC 6543 readily suggest its popular moniker -- the Cat's Eye nebula. Starting in 1995, stunning false-color optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope detailed the swirls of this glowing nebula, known to be the gaseous shroud expelled from a dying sun-like star about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This composite picture combines the latest Hubble optical image of the Cat's Eye with new x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory and reveals surprisingly intense x-ray emission indicating the presence of extremely hot gas. X-ray emission is shown as blue-purple hues superimposed on the nebula's center. The nebula's central star itself is clearly immersed in the multimillion degree, x-ray emitting gas. Other pockets of x-ray hot gas seem to be bordered by cooler gas emitting strongly at optical wavelengths, a clear indication that expanding hot gas is sculpting the visible Cat's Eye filaments and structures. Gazing into the Cat's Eye, astronomers see the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution … in about 5 billion years. This image was the "NASA - Astronomy Picture of the Day" - 2008, August 4. |
| 33. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2005, January M51: Cosmic Whirlpool Digital image NASA S. Beckwith (STScI) Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA, NASA Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (right), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy in small, earthbound telescopes, this sharpest ever picture of M51 was made in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope. This image was the "NASA - Astronomy Picture of the Day" - 2008, January 5. |
| 34. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. Halo of the Cat's Eye Digital image Source requested R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group), D. Goncalves (Inst. Astrofisica de Canarias) The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color picture, processed to reveal the enormous but extremely faint halo of gaseous material, over three light-years across, which surrounds the brighter, familiar planetary nebula. Made with data from the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Canary Islands, the composite picture shows emission from nitrogen atoms as red and oxygen atoms as green and blue shades. Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. Only much more recently however, have some planetaries been found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier active episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. This image was the "NASA - Astronomy Picture of the Day" - 2002, September 4. |
| 35. |  | Galileo Orbiter 1996, 29 January Infrared Image of Low Clouds on Venus Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer NASA NASA/JPL, PIA00124 This false-color image is a near-infrared map of lower-level clouds on the night side of Venus, obtained by the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer aboard the Galileo spacecraft as it approached the planet's night side on February 10, 1990. Bright slivers of sunlit high clouds are visible above and below the dark, glowing hemisphere. The spacecraft is about 100,000 kilometers (60,000 miles) above the planet. An infrared wavelength of 2.3 microns (about three times the longest wavelength visible to the human eye) was used. The map shows the turbulent, cloudy middle atmosphere some 50-55 kilometers (30- 33 miles) above the surface, 10-16 kilometers or 6-10 miles below the visible cloudtops. The red color represents the radiant heat from the lower atmosphere (about 400 degrees Fahrenheit) shining through the sulfuric acid clouds, which appear as much as 10 times darker than the bright gaps between clouds. This cloud layer is at about -30 degrees Fahrenheit, at a pressure about 1/2 Earth's surface atmospheric pressure. Near the equator, the clouds appear fluffy and blocky; farther north, they are stretched out into East-West filaments by winds estimated at more than 150 mph, while the poles are capped by thick clouds at this altitude. |
| 36. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist n.d. The Galactic bubble RCW 120 ESA - European Space Agency ESA/PACS/SPIRE/HOBYS Consortia, ID number: SEMIA7KPO8G RCW 120 is a galactic bubble with a large surprise. How large? At least 8 times the mass of the Sun. Nestled in the shell around this large bubble is an embryonic star that looks set to turn into one of the brightest stars in the Galaxy. The Galactic bubble is known as RCW 120. It lies about 4300 light-years away and has been formed by a star at its centre. The star is not visible at these infrared wavelengths but pushes on the surrounding dust and gas with nothing more than the power of its starlight. In the 2.5 million years the star has existed. It has raised the density of matter in the bubble wall so much that the quantity trapped there can now collapse to form new stars. The bright knot to the right of the base of the bubble is an unexpectedly large, embryonic star, triggered into formation by the power of the central star. Herschel's observations have shown that it already contains between 8-10 times the mass of our Sun. The star can only get bigger because it is surrounded by a cloud containing an additional 2000 solar masses. Not all of that will fall onto the star, even the largest stars in the Galaxy do not exceed 150 solar masses. But the question of what stops the matter falling onto the star is a puzzle for modern astronomers. According to theory, stars should stop forming at about 8 solar masses. At that mass they should become so hot that they shine powerfully at ultraviolet wavelengths. This light should push the surrounding matter away, much as the central star did to form this bubble. But clearly sometimes this mass limit is exceeded otherwise there would be no giant stars in the Galaxy. So astronomers would like to know how some stars can seem to defy physics and grow so large. Is this newly discovered stellar embryo destined to grow into a stellar monster? At the moment, nobody knows but further analysis of this Herschel image could give us invaluable clues. |
| 37. |  | Magellan 1996, 7 February Venus - Eistla Region Imaging Radar NASA NASA/JPL, PIA00084 This Magellan full resolution mosaic, centered at 12.3 north latitude, 8.3 degrees east longitude, shows an area 160 kilometers (96 miles) by 250 kilometers (150 miles) in the Eistla region of Venus. The prominent circular features are volcanic domes, 65 kilometers (39 miles) in diameter with broad, flat tops less than one kilometer (0.6 mile) in height. Sometimes referred to as 'pancake' domes, they represent a unique category of volcanic extrusions on Venus formed from viscous (sticky) lava. The cracks and pits commonly found in these features result from cooling and the withdrawal of lava. A less viscous flow was emitted from the northeastern dome toward the other large dome in the southwest corner of the image. |
| 38. |  | Hubble Space Telescope 2010, 1-2 February Hubble captures view of 'Mystic Mountain' Wide Field Camera 3 ESA - European Space Agency NASA/ESA/M. Livio & Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI), ID number: SEMMHWF098G This craggy fantasy mountaintop shrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall, which is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, some 7500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. The image celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into orbit around Earth. Scorching radiation and fast winds (streams of charged particles) from super-hot newborn stars in the nebula are shaping and compressing the pillar, causing new stars to form within it. Streamers of hot ionised gas can be seen flowing off the ridges of the structure, and wispy veils of gas and dust, illuminated by starlight, float around its towering peaks. The denser parts of the pillar are resisting being eroded by radiation. Nestled inside this dense mountain are fledgling stars. Long streamers of gas can be seen shooting in opposite directions from the pedestal at the top of the image. Another pair of jets is visible at another peak near the centre of the image. These jets, known as HH 901 and HH 902, respectively, are signposts for new star birth and are launched by swirling gas and dust discs around the young stars, which allow material to slowly accrete onto the stellar surfaces. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar on 1-2 February 2010. The colours in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green) and sulphur (red). |
| 39. |  | Galileo 1997, February (combined image) Europa "Ice Rafts" in Local and Color Context Solid-State Imaging NASA NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, PIA01296 This image of Jupiter's icy satellite Europa shows surface features such as domes and ridges, as well as a region of disrupted terrain including crustal plates which are thought to have broken apart and "rafted" into new positions. The image covers an area of Europa's surface about 250 by 200 kilometer (km) and is centered at 10 degrees latitude, 271 degrees longitude. The color information allows the surface to be divided into three distinct spectral units. The bright white areas are ejecta rays from the relatively young crater Pwyll, which is located about 1000 km to the south (bottom) of this image. These patchy deposits appear to be superposed on other areas of the surface, and thus are thought to be the youngest features present. Also visible are reddish areas which correspond to locations where non-ice components are present. This coloring can be seen along the ridges, in the region of disrupted terrain in the center of the image, and near the dome-like features where the surface may have been thermally altered. Thus, areas associated with internal geologic activity appear reddish. The third distinct color unit is bright blue, and corresponds to the relatively old icy plains. This product combines data taken by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft during three separate flybys of Europa. Low resolution color data (violet, green, and 1 micron) acquired in September 1996 were combined with medium resolution images from December 1996, to produce synthetic color images. These were then combined with a high resolution mosaic of images acquired in February 1997. |
| 40. |  | IRAS satellite n.d. Dust structures within 500 light-years of the Sun ESA - European Space Agency ESA and the HFI Consortium, IRAS, ID number: SEM3C6CKP6G The image spans about 50¦ of the sky. It is a three-colour combination constructed from Planck's two highest frequency channels (557 and 857 GHz, corresponding to wavelengths of 540 and 350 micrometres), and an image at the shorter wavelength of 100 micrometres made by the IRAS satellite. This combination visualises dust temperature very effectively: red corresponds to temperatures as cold as 10¦ above absolute zero, and white to those of a few tens of degrees. Overall, the image shows local dust structures within 500 light-years of the Sun. |
| 41. |  | Cassini Orbiter 2007, 17 July Rhea - Icy Profile Imaging Science Subsystem - Narrow Angle NASA NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute, PIA10494 The Cassini spacecraft looks toward Rhea's cratered, icy landscape with the dark line of Saturn's ringplane and the planet's murky atmosphere as a background. Rhea is Saturn's second-largest moon, at 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from less than a degree above the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 17, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.2 million kilometers (770,000 miles) from Rhea. Image scale is 7 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel. |
| 42. |  | NASA 2012, March 12 Saturn's Brightly Reflective Moon Enceladus Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera NASA NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, 647792main_image_2246_1024-768 A brightly reflective Enceladus appears before Saturn's rings, while the planet's larger moon Titan looms in the distance. Jets of water ice and vapor emanating from the south pole of Enceladus, which hint at subsurface sea rich in organics, and liquid hydrocarbons ponding on the surface on the surface of Titan make these two of the most fascinating moons in the Saturnian system. Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across) is in the center of the image. Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) glows faintly in the background beyond the rings. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Enceladus and the Saturn-facing side of Titan. The northern, sunlit side of the rings is seen from just above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 12, 2012. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 600,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 36 degrees. Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel on Enceladus. |
| 43. |  | Hubble Space Telescope n.d. Hubble COSMOS survey Hubble space telescope ESA - European Space Agency NASA, ESA and R. Massey (California Institute of Technology), ID number: SEMSMGSVYVE This composite shows three different components of the Hubble COSMOS survey: The normal matter (in red) determined mainly by the European Space Agency's XMM/Newton telescope, the dark matter (in blue) and the stars and galaxies (in grey) observed in visible light with Hubble. |
| 44. |  | Spitzer Space Telescope 2005, 9 November (before) Towering Infernos IRAC NASA IRAC Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA/ESA/STScI, Visible Light Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA/DSS, PIA03096 This majestic false-color image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the "mountains" where stars are born. Dubbed "Mountains of Creation" by Spitzer scientists, these towering pillars of cool gas and dust are illuminated at their tips with light from warm embryonic stars. The new infrared picture is reminiscent of Hubble's iconic visible-light image of the Eagle Nebula, which also features a star-forming region, or nebula, that is being sculpted into pillars by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars. The pillars in the Spitzer image are part of a region called W5, in the Cassiopeia constellation 7,000 light-years away and 50 light-years across. They are more than 10 times in the size of those in the Eagle Nebula (shown to scale here). The Spitzer's view differs from Hubble's because infrared light penetrates dust, whereas visible light is blocked by it. In the Spitzer image, hundreds of forming stars (white/yellow) can seen for the first time inside the central pillar, and dozens inside the tall pillar to the left. Scientists believe these star clusters were triggered into existence by radiation and winds from an "initiator" star more than 10 times the mass of our Sun. This star is not pictured, but the finger-like pillars "point" toward its location above the image frame. The Spitzer picture also reveals stars (blue) a bit older than the ones in the pillar tips in the evacuated areas between the clouds. Scientists believe these stars were born around the same time as the massive initiator star not pictured. A third group of young stars occupies the bright area below the central pillar. It is not known whether these stars formed in a related or separate event. Some of the blue dots are foreground stars that are not members of this nebula. The red color in the Spitzer image represents organic molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These building blocks of life are often found in star-forming clouds of gas and dust. Like small dust grains, they are heated by the light from the young stars, then emit energy in infrared wavelengths. This image was taken by the infrared array camera on Spitzer. It is a 4-color composite of infrared light, showing emissions from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), and 8.0 microns (red). The image composite compares an infrared image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to a visible-light picture of the same region. While the infrared view, dubbed "Mountains of Creation," reveals towering pillars of dust aglow with the light of embryonic stars (white/yellow), the visible-light view shows dark, barely-visible pillars. The added detail in the Spitzer image reveals a dynamic region in the process of evolving and creating new stellar life. Why do the pictures look so different? The answer has two parts. First, infrared light can travel through dust, while visible light is blocked by it. In this case, infrared light from the stars tucked inside the dusty pillars is escaping and being detected by Spitzer. Second, the dust making up the pillars has been warmed by stars and consequently glows in infrared light, where Spitzer can see it. This is a bit like seeing warm bodies at night with infrared goggles. In summary, Spitzer is both seeing, and seeing through, the dust. The Spitzer image was taken by the infrared array camera on Spitzer. It is a 4-color composite of infrared light, showing emissions from wavelengths of 3.6 microns (blue), 4.5 microns (green), 5.8 microns (orange), and 8.0 microns (red). The visible-light image is from California Institute of Technology's Digitized Sky Survey. |
| 45. |  | Hubble Space Telescope 2006, March Close-up views of the active galaxy M82 Hubble space telescope ESA - European Space Agency NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), ID number: SEM7L8OFGLE Close-up of some of the most interesting parts of the Hubble Space Telescope image of the active galaxy Messier 82 (M82), taken in March 2006. Left: A portion of M82's bluish disk, largely composed of hot young stars. Numerous bright blue-white star-forming clumps and wisps of darker, cooler dust and gas appear superimposed on the disk. Centre: The central "inner-city" portion of the galaxy shows the combined light of countless stars and reveals numerous star-forming clumps, dark red clouds of gas and dust obscuring the light from the galaxy's core, and an overall field of fainter red (cooler) and blue (hotter) stars. |
| 46. |  | NASA 2012, 9 May The sun unleashed an M4.7 class flare at 8:32 EDT on May 9, 2012 as captured here by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory SDO NASA NASA/GSFC/SDO The sun unleashed an M4.7 class flare at 8:32 EDT on May 9, 2012 as captured here by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The flare was over quickly and there was no coronal mass ejection associated with it. This image is shown in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength that is typically colorized in teal and that provided the most detailed picture of this particular flare. |
| 47. |  | R. Durßn (ALMA) 2011 16 antennas on Chajnantor Colour image ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) Antenna number 16th of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has reached the heights of the Chajnantor plateau after having been transported to the observatory's Array Operations Site (AOS). The 12-meter diameter antenna, which was a European deriverable, has arrived at 5,000 meters above sea level where it joined antennas from the North American and the East Asian ALMA partners. Although this sounds like just another number, 16 is the number of antennas specified for ALMA to begin its first science observations, and is therefore an important milestone for the project. Soon, astronomers will begin conducting new scientific research with ALMA. |
| 48. |  | Scientific collaboration 2011 (or earlier) Coverage of ALMA Test Observations Colour image ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (NRAO/AUI/NSF), ALMA (NRAO/NAOJ/ESO) The orange data comes from ALMA's low-resolution Band 3 test observations. The white boxes outline where ALMA Band 6 early test data (amber) were taken. Inside are also the areas where ALMA Band 7 science verification data (yellow) were taken. During Early Science observations, ALMA will fill in more of the millimeter/submillimeter picture of the Antennae Galaxies. |
| 49. |  | Scientific collaboration 2011 Antenn' Galaxies composite of ALMA and Hubble observations Colour image ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope The Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039) are a pair of distorted colliding spiral galaxies about 70 million light-years away, in the constellation of Corvus (The Crow). This view combines ALMA observations, made in two different wavelength ranges during the observatory's early testing phase, with visible-light observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble image is the sharpest view of this object ever taken and serves as the ultimate benchmark in terms of resolution. ALMA observes at much longer wavelengths which makes it much harder to obtain comparably sharp images. However, when the full ALMA array is completed its vision will be up to ten times sharper than Hubble. Most of the ALMA test observations used to create this image were made using only twelve antennas working together fewer than will be used for the first science observations and much closer together as well. Both of these factors make the new image just a taster of what is to come. As the observatory grows, the sharpness, efficiency, and quality of its observations will increase dramatically as more antennas become available and the array grows in size. This is nevertheless the best submillimeter-wavelength image ever taken of the Antennae Galaxies and opens a new window on the submillimeter Universe. While visible light shown here mainly in blue reveals the newborn stars in the galaxies, ALMA's view shows us something that cannot be seen at those wavelengths: the clouds of dense cold gas from which new stars form. The ALMA observations shown here in red, pink and yellow were made at specific wavelengths of millimeter and submillimeter light (ALMA bands 3 and 7), tuned to detect carbon monoxide molecules in the otherwise invisible hydrogen clouds, where new stars are forming. Massive concentrations of gas are found not only in the hearts of the two galaxies but also in the chaotic region where they are colliding. Here, the total amount of gas is billions of times the mass of the Sun a rich reservoir of material for future generations of stars. Observations like these will be vital in helping us understand how galaxy collisions can trigger the birth of new stars. This is just one example of how ALMA reveals parts of the Universe that cannot be seen with visible-light and infrared telescopes. |
| 50. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2009, 25 November The International Space Station (ISS) Digital image NASA NASA Nov. 25, 2009, Collection: STS-129 Gallery, 408082main_fd10 The International Space Station is photographed soon after the space shuttle Atlantis and the station began their post-undocking separation. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 3:53 a.m. (CST) on Nov. 25, 2009. |
| 51. |  | Unidentified photographer / artist 2012, 6 August First Color Image of the Martian Landscape Returned from Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) NASA NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems This view of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing. (The team calls this day Sol 1, which is the first Martian day of operations; Sol 1 began on Aug. 6, 2012.) In the distance, the image shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The image is murky because the MAHLI's removable dust cover is apparently coated with dust blown onto the camera during the rover's terminal descent. Images taken without the dust cover in place are expected during checkout of the robotic arm in coming weeks. The MAHLI is located on the turret at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. At the time the MAHLI Sol 1 image was acquired, the robotic arm was in its stowed position. It has been stowed since the rover was packaged for its Nov. 26, 2011, launch. The MAHLI has a transparent dust cover. This image was acquired with the dust cover closed. The cover will not be opened until more than a week after the landing. When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is in a position that is rotated 30 degrees relative to the rover deck. The MAHLI image shown here has been rotated to correct for that tilt, so that the sky is "up" and the ground is "down". When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is looking out from the front left side of the rover. This is much like the view from the driver's side of cars sold in the USA. The main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site. The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. This means it can, as shown here, also obtain pictures of the Martian landscape. Source: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4282 |