THE BEST SCIENCE PHOTOS OF THE WEEK II

Credit: NAOJ/AND You Inc.

THE BEST SCIENCE PHOTOS OF THE WEEK - 21 JANUARY 2012
By Live Science Staff, 21 January 2012.

A brilliant figure-8 glowing on the sea, a golden eye nebula in space and a gory, yet stunning, image of a boa constrictor strangling its prey. These are just some of the dazzling science images from the past week. Take a look!

THE DUNG BEETLE DANCE

Credit: Emily Baird; Baird E, Byrne MJ, Smolka J, Warrant EJ, Dacke M / PLoS ONE

Dung beetles dance on top of balls of poo to help them navigate away from rivals as fast as possible, scientists reported this week.

Their findings suggest that dung beetles navigate according to the position of celestial cues. They climb on top of their dung balls to get a good look at the sky, and move around in a circle to get a fix on their bearings. [Read full story]

BOAS LISTEN TO PREY'S HEARTBEAT

Credit: Scott Boback

During its long, slow squeeze, a boa constrictor will feel every last heartbeat of the animal it has captured. This slithering predator uses its prey's heartbeat to decide when it's safe to stop constricting, a new study has demonstrated. [Read full story]

POOR SEA LION PUPS!

Credit: Alaska Sea Life Center

Killer whales and other ocean predators are targeting and killing the pups of a threatened northern sea lion species at an increasingly high rate, scientists warned this week. [Read full story]

PORTRAIT OF A BLACK HOLE

 Credit: Alain R. | Wikimedia Commons

A group of astronomers met this week to discuss their plans for capturing the first-ever image of a black hole. They hope to create an Earth-size virtual instrument called the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes powerful enough to snap a picture of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. (Shown here, a simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.) [Read full story]

THE GOLDEN EYE

Credit: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

A nearby planetary nebula shines like a huge golden eye in a new photo snapped by a telescope in Chile.

The image shows the Helix Nebula, which lies about 700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius (The Water Bearer). The picture was taken in infrared light by the European Southern Observatory's Vista telescope, one of the instruments at ESO's Paranal Observatory. [Read full story]

FLEETING ART

Credit: Gloria Lamson. glorialamson.com. glorialamson.blogspot.com.

LiveScience published amazing photos of environmental art this week. Shown here, a piece created by environmental artist Gloria Lamson. Called "Seaweed - Light," Lamson created the work in 2006 on the shores of a beach in Port Townsend, Wash. [See more amazing environmental art]

SHADOWY SPOTS ON MOON

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Spots on the called permanently shadowed regions are always dark and never reflect sunlight, so telescopes and satellites have no way to image them in regular light. Now, researchers have used a more devious method to view these areas and found that they may be relatively abundant in water ice. [Read full story]

OCEANS 8

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

A brilliant blue figure eight decorates the ocean as if someone painted it there. But this isn't man's work — the phenomenon is caused by a phytoplankton bloom colouring the water in the South Atlantic about 379 miles (600 km) east of the Falkland Islands. The Earth-observing satellite Envisat captured this image of the algal bloom on Dec. 2, 2011. Satellites with ocean colour sensors can even tell the species of the plankton from space, by analyzing the shade of the algae's chlorophyll pigment. [See more amazing science images]

COUNT DRACULA PRIMATES

Credit: Eric Fell

An elusive monkey feared extinct has shown up in the remote forests of Borneo, posing for the first good pictures of the animal ever taken. (Shown here, a small group of the Miller's grizzled langurs, including a juvenile.) [Read full story]

TELESCOPE GEAR BRINGS STARS INTO STUNNING FOCUS

Credit: The Gemini South telescope on the night of January 21-22, 2011 during the first propagation of the GeMS laser guide star system on the sky. A bright gibbous moon illuminates the landscape for this 20-second fisheye lens view.

Stars viewed by an observatory in South America have just lost their twinkle. Images from this ground-based telescope are brighter and clearer than ever before, thanks to a new instrument on the Gemini South observatory that reduces the blurring, or twinkle, caused by Earth's atmosphere.

Shown here, the Gemini South telescope on the night of January 21-22, 2011, during the first propagation of the GeMS laser guide star system on the sky. A bright gibbous moon illuminates the landscape for this 20-second fisheye lens view. [Read full story]

CONCORDIA FROM SPACE

Credit: DigitalGlobe

The Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia founders off the coast of Tuscany on Jan. 17 in this image captured by a satellite. The ship hit a rock and capsized on Jan. 13, triggering a hectic, poorly planned evacuation and a manslaughter charge for the captain, who was among the first to bail out from the sinking ship. Eleven people are confirmed dead, with 23 more missing.

[Source: Live Science]