Wow, Is the sun smiling at us?
Is the sun smiling at us? :-)
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image Aug. 21, 2013,
showing what looks to be a grinning face on the sun.
showing what looks to be a grinning face on the sun.
An image of the sun captured Aug 21, 2013
An image of the sun captured Aug. 21, 2013.
A new view of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is seen in this image released by NASA on April 3, 2013. The SMC is a dwarf galaxy about 200,000 light-years away that orbits the Milky Way. It is one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors and even though it's a small galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator.
The spiral galaxy in the lower lefthand corner is actually behind this nebula. Other distant galaxies -- located hundreds of millions of light-years or more away -- are visible around the edge of the image.
In this image released by NASA on March 4, 2013, Venus is visible through the rings of Saturn as a small, bright white dot (above and to the right of the image center). This view was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Nov. 10, 2012.
On April 19, NASA released this new view of the Horsehead Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. April 24 marks the 23rd anniversary of the Hubble's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
This view from ESA’s Herschel space observatory shows the Horsehead Nebula in the context of its surroundings. The Horsehead nebula is located in the constellation Orion, about 1,300 light-years away. The Horsehead appears to rise above the surrounding gas and points towards the bright Flame Nebula. Intense radiation streaming away from newborn stars heats up the surrounding dust and gas, making it shine brightly to Herschel’s infrared-sensitive eyes (shown in pink and white in this image).
This image, released by the European Southern Observatory on April 10, 2013, shows the glowing green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim and dying star located about 3300 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). At the center of the image, you can see the burnt-out remnant of the star's core as a bright blue-white spot at the heart of the nebula.
This cosmic skyrocket is actually a geyser of hot gas from a newborn star that splashes against and ricochets off a cloud core composed of molecular hydrogen. Known as Herbig-Haro 110 and spotted in the constellation Orion, the geyser is located some 1,300 light years from Earth. Hubble Space Telescope captured the image and NASA released it July 3.
The strange galaxy Centaurus A is pictured in an image released on May 16 by the European Southern Observatory. Centaurus A is a massive elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its heart. It's about 12 million light years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus.
This photo of a dying red giant star depicted an unexpected spiral structure around its center. Astronomers surmise that this might be what Earth's sun looks like at the end of its life. These spirals had never been seen by astronomers before and are believed to have been caused by a hidden companion star orbiting the red giant.
This composite image of M101 (also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy) combines data from four of NASA's space-based telescopes. X-rays from Chandra (purple) reveal the hottest and most energetic areas due to exploded stars, superheated gas, and material falling toward black holes. Infrared data from Spitzer (red) shows dusty lanes in the galaxy where stars are forming, while Hubble data (yellow) traces the light from stars. Ultraviolet emission detected by GALEX (blue) shows emission from young stars.
This stunning view of Earth reveals the planet at night in unprecedented detail, earning it the nickname, "Black Marble." Released by NASA Dec. 5, it was assembled from multiple shots taken by the Suomi NPP satellite during April and October 2012. The new data was mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.
This image of a cyclone over Saturn from NASA's Cassini mission was taken on Nov. 27 with Cassini's narrow-angle camera. The camera was pointing toward Saturn from approximately 224,618 miles away.
A spectacular new image of the star-forming Carina Nebula was captured by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory on June 5.
NASA's Hubble Telescope captured this image of Eta Carinae, a binary star system. In 1843, Eta Carinae was the second-brightest star in the night sky, but by the 20th century, it was invisible to the naked eye. Eta Carinae happens to be one of the closest stars to Earth that is likely to explode in a supernova in the relatively near future (though in astronomical timeframes, the "near future" could still be a million years away).
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission recently discovered thousands of newfound supermassive blackholes and galaxies -- called Hot DOGs. These dust-obscured galaxies are twice as hot as similar objects and among the most luminous, brightest galaxies known. Some emit 1,000 times more energy than the Milky Way. On Aug. 29, NASA released images from the telescope, marking the new Hot DOGs with magenta symbols.
Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition," mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 is very faint. Also called Ced 201, it is nearly 1,400 light years away.
On July 2, Hubble Space Telescope posted this portrait of dying star Camelopardalis (U Cam for short) as it released a spherical shell of gas. U Cam is becoming increasingly unstable, and every few thousand years the red giant's core fuses and it expels stellar material in these eruptions. Although the star itself is small enough to fit into a single pixel of the photo, its brightness makes it appear much larger than it is.
The ESA released this new view of the Orion A star-formation cloud on Aug. 26, 2013. The nebula is located in the sword of Orion, below the three main stars that form Orion's belt.
This image, released by the European Southern Observatory on Aug. 20, 2013, shows a vivid close-up view of material streaming away from a newborn star. By looking at the glow coming from carbon monoxide molecules in an object called Herbig-Haro 46/47 astronomers have discovered that its jets are even more energetic than previously thought
The ESO released this view of a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies -- on Aug. 7, 2013. This sharp image reveals two glowing clouds of gas. NGC 2014 (right) is irregularly shaped and red and its neighbor, NGC 2020, is round and blue. Both form were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly.
This image, released by Hubble on June 20, 2013, is the result of a collision between a spiral and an elliptical galaxy 326 million light-years away. The flat disk of the spiral NGC 2936 is warped to look like the profile of a bird by the gravitational tug of the companion NGC 2937. The object was first cataloged as a "peculiar galaxy" by Halton Arp in the 1960s. This interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 142.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of the sun on June 19, 2013. A large coronal hole – visible in dark blue -- spreads out over almost the upper left-middle section of the sun. A coronal hole is an area of the sun’s atmosphere that is colder and less dense than the surrounding areas.
Two or three times a year, the moon travels across the sun, blocking its view. The result is a view of the shadow of the moon in which its horizon is visible up against the sun. The features of the moon’s topography are visible along this border. NASA visualizers recently overlayed a 3-dimensional model of the moon into the shadow of the moon on one such image. The end result was this awe-inspiring image of the sun and the moon released by NASA on June 12, 2013.
This spectacular group of young stars is the star cluster NGC 3766 in the constellation of Centaurus. New observations have shown that 36 of the stars are of a new and unknown class of star. This image was released by the European Southern Observatory on June 12, 2013.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope released this view of the Ring Nebula on May 23, 2013. The new image reveals the nebula's complex structure.
This new view of a spectacular stellar nursery IC 2944 was released on May 23, 2013, to celebrate a milestone: 15 years of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The image also shows a group of thick clouds of dust known as the Thackeray globules silhouetted against the pale pink glowing gas of the nebula.
This image of cosmic clouds in the constellation of Orion, released by the European Southern Observatory on May 15, 2013, reveals what seems to be a fiery ribbon in the sky. The orange glow represents faint light coming from cold interstellar dust, at wavelengths impossible for human eyes to see. The large bright cloud in the upper right of the image is the well-known Orion Nebula, also called Messier 42.
The red wisps of gas in this image, released by NASA on May 3, 2013, make up an object known as SNR 0519. They are remnants from when an unstable white dwarf star exploded violently as a supernova around 600 years ago.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from just around the edge of the sun on May 1, 2013, in a gigantic rolling wave. CMEs can shoot over one billion tons of particles into space at over one million mph. See a video here.
The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a giant red rose in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The eye is a staggering 1,250 miles across and wind speeds reach 330 mph. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, and released on April 29, 2013.
This spectacular false-color image from NASA's Cassini mission shows storms at Saturn's north pole. The eye of a hurricane-like storm appears dark red while the fast-moving hexagonal jet stream framing it is a yellowish green. Low-lying clouds circling inside the hexagonal feature appear as muted orange color. A second, smaller vortex pops out in teal at the lower right of the image. The rings of Saturn appear in vivid blue at the top right. The image was taken with Cassini's wide-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, and released April 29, 2013.
This image shows a dark cloud of dust and gas called Lupus 3, where new stars are forming. Next to the stellar nursery is a bright cluster of stars that have already emerged. This picture was released on Jan. 16, 2013.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 200,000 light-years away from Earth. Huge clouds of gas within the galaxy are slowly collapsing and forming new stars, creating an array of striking colors. On Jan. 17, 2013, NASA released this new image of the LMC taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
This cloud of gas, formally called Sharpless 2-292, is part of a stellar nursery nicknamed the Seagull Nebula. It glows brightly due to the energetic radiation from a very hot young star lurking at its center. ESO's La Silla Observatory released the image on Sept. 26, 2012.
Located 650 light years from Earth, the Helix nebula is the cosmic remains of a dying star. In this combined image released Oct. 3, 2012, from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, the star's dusty outer layers glow from ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by its stellar core.
On Sept. 3, 2012, NASA released a sparkling picture of the center of globular cluster M 4. The cluster contains tens of thousands of stars including many white dwarfs, which are the cores of ancient dying stars. Also in M 4 is a planet called PSR B1620-36 b, which is 2.5 times the mass of Jupiter and 13 billion years old -- three times the age of our Solar System.
On Dec. 18, 2012, NASA released this rare view of Saturn, taken from the Cassini spacecraft. The image was taken while Cassini was in the planet's shadow, so Saturn and its rings are backlit by the sun. The last time a similar view of Saturn was captured was in September 2006. Also visible in this image on the left side of the planet are two of Saturn's moons, Enceladus and Tethys.
On June 12, 2009, astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured this awesome shot of the early stage of an eruption at Sarychev volcano on Matua Island, northeast of Japan.
This false-color image of Eritrea's Nabro Volcano shows hot surfaces in bright red. On June 12, 2011, the volcano began erupting, with emissions spreading over East Africa and the Middle East. In this image, hot volcanic ash appears glowing red, as do portions of a lava flow in the top left of the picture.
Active since 1995, Soufriere Hills is a volcano on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean Sea. On Oct. 4, 2009, it began a series of eruptions that created plumes of ash, pyroclastic flows and lava-dome growth. Astronauts on the International Space Station captured this image of the eruption on Oct. 11.
NASA's EO-1 satellite captured this image of Manam Volcano off the coast of Papua New Guinea on June 28, 2009. The fluffy, white clouds above the volcano's summit could be a result of water vapor released by the volcano, whereas the slightly darker gray plume blows west from the summit and over the sea.
Cleveland Volcano on Chuginadak Island in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, produced a huge plume of ash on May 23, 2006. Two hours later, the volcano stopped smoking and the ash cloud completely detached from the summit.
This false-color image of Eritrea's Nabro Volcano shows hot surfaces in bright red. On June 12, 2011, the volcano began erupting, with emissions spreading over East Africa and the Middle East. In this image, hot volcanic ash appears glowing red, as do portions of a lava flow in the top left of the picture.
Active since 1995, Soufriere Hills is a volcano on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean Sea. On Oct. 4, 2009, it began a series of eruptions that created plumes of ash, pyroclastic flows and lava-dome growth. Astronauts on the International Space Station captured this image of the eruption on Oct. 11.
NASA's EO-1 satellite captured this image of Manam Volcano off the coast of Papua New Guinea on June 28, 2009. The fluffy, white clouds above the volcano's summit could be a result of water vapor released by the volcano, whereas the slightly darker gray plume blows west from the summit and over the sea.
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