[ad_1]
You know that foggy, cloudy and yellow moon of Saturn called Titan? It's the same moon! Using multi-year infrared data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, scientists created the most detailed view of Titan we've ever seen. Due to the thick atmosphere enveloping this moon, it is usually difficult to see through clouds and haze. With the infrared? A whole new world, or moon, opens.
Sometimes the Earth, seen from space, may have characteristics more similar to those you expect from an extraterrestrial planet. This particular photo is from the Chukchi Sea, an Arctic water expanse north of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. NASA's Landsat8 satellite captured these beautiful blue and green phytoplankton swirls a few weeks ago. It looks almost hot enough for a summer swim!
The pillars of creation, part of the Eagle Nebula, are perhaps the most famous feature of our time, and for good reason: they are beautiful. These towers received their name because they were a stellar nursery, a place where new stars were born. Yes, the key word is "were". Scientists think that a supernova explosion shot down the pillars a few years ago. However, the light of this cataclysm has not yet arrived; what we see in this photo is about 5700 years old, since it is the duration of the light from the nebula that reached the Hubble Space Telescope.
The dwarf planet Ceres, the planet closest to Earth, is found in the asteroid belt. between our world and Mars. The NASA Dawn spacecraft has orbited around Ceres for over three years and has spotted some pretty interesting stuff, including those bright, salty regions in the crater known as Crater Occator. Dawn's mission is expected to come to an end in the coming months, as it will run out of fuel, though it will continue to revolve around Ceres. We will no longer be able to communicate with him.
Saturn, you're so great. The Cassini spacecraft took this beautiful photo of the ringed planet in January 2010, with improved night-side light so we could better see the demarcations in the rings. Although Cassini completed his mission when he entered the atmosphere of Saturn last September, we will still have these great views of the most remarkable planet (other than ours) in our solar system.
This sparkling group of stars is an irregular galaxy called UGC 12682. The bright blue areas indicate the formation of stars, and their contrast with the dark fabric of space makes this picture of 39, all the more seductive. The UGC 12682 galaxy is 70 million light years from Earth, so all the little stars here probably have already grown up.
Source link
