Space photos of the week: black holes and jellyfish rainbows



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NASA is studying cosmic phenomena of all kinds, but here it is attacking something very close to home. He recently launched two rockets as part of the Auroral Zone Flare Experiment, or AZURE, to study the aurorae of the Earth. Each rocket measures the density of the atmosphere and releases gas tracers: these are the jellyfish that we see on this image.

Here is the first image of a black hole that humanity has ever seen. On Wednesday, the Horizon Event Telescope Network released the first photo of the ultramassive black hole located at the center of the M87 galaxy, about 55 million light-years away. The dark center is the shadow of the bright ring of the event horizon. In this black hole that is not only huge, it is 6.5 billion times more massive than our Sun, which makes it as large as our entire solar system.

Scientists using the cooled medium infrared camera and spectrograph, or the COMICS instrument, at the Subaru telescope in Japan captured Jupiter heating up and we know the culprit: our Sun. When the solar wind moves in space and arrives at Jupiter, it has an effect similar to that observed here on Earth. The interaction of these highly charged particles with the planet's magnetic field creates a massive psychedelic dawn.

We often think that Mars is a sorry and boring planet. Although this may be so more from time to time, he sees an activity. This abstract image shows the scars of very busy dust devils in the Cimmerian region on Mars. The area where this photo was taken is very cratered and is not far from where the NASA Spirit fighter has been roaming for years. Scientists believe this area was once covered with rivers. While it was flat and apparently lifeless, it was once a watering point.

This photo shows the very large telescope of the Southern European Observatory with the sparkling Milky Way just behind. This telescope is so sensitive that it can see objects 4 times weaker than what we can see from our eyes. Combine this amazing technology with this beautiful, desolate landscape of the Atacama Desert in Chile and you'll have the recipe for an epic science.

This is Messier 2, a globular group located 55,000 light-years away. The many stars that are part of it are linked together by their own gravity. Messier 2 is so huge that it can be seen with the naked eye on a clear night.

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