Space Pictures This Week: Loner Galaxy, Mars Closeup, More
By National Geographic News, 16 August 2012.
By National Geographic News, 16 August 2012.
1. Lucky Shot
Photograph by Oshin D. Zakarian, TWAN
A Perseid meteor zips over Iran's Alamut Castle in an August 12 picture submitted to the astronomy-education project The World at Night.
The Perseids, which occur annually when Earth and the moon pass through a cloud of rocky particles shed by comet Swift-Tuttle, often provide an impressive show for sky-watchers - including photographer Oshin D. Zakarian.
"Just came back from Perseid-meteor shooting," he wrote with his submission, "and this time I was lucky!"
2. Mars Touchdown
NASA's Curiosity rover took this colour image of gravel-coloured ground on Mars just minutes after touching down on the red planet on August 8.
A sliver of sunlight passing through the structure of the rover - whose wheel is visible at top left - illuminates the surface. The largest rock fragment in the image is about two inches (five centimetres) long.
3. Spanish Gold
Valencia, Spain, glimmers like gold treasure in an August 4 picture taken from the International Space Station. With a population exceeding two million, Valencia is the country's third largest city.
4. Pipe Nebula
Taken at Chile's La Silla Paranal Observatory, a picture released August 15 shows the dark, dusty Pipe Nebula silhouetted against stars close to the centre of the Milky Way.
5. Fiery Failure
NASA's Project Morpheus vehicle burns after a hardware failure prevented the prototype lander from maintaining stable flight on August 9 at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Engineers are looking into the cause of the failure, which resulted in no injuries.
Morpheus - designed to improve spacecraft propulsion, landing, and hazard detection - is also intended to carry more than a thousand pounds (450 kilograms) of cargo to the moon.
6. Lake Lights
Photograph by Tamas Ladanyi, TWAN
Hitting Earth's atmosphere at almost a hundred thousand miles (160,000 kilometres) an hour, the meteoroids burn up, producing streaks of light - meteors, or shooting stars - each lasting just a fraction of a second.
7. Lonely Galaxy
Without neighbours, the "lonely" galaxy DDO 190 is relatively small and lacks clear structure, according to NASA.
In this recently released Hubble Space Telescope picture, older, reddish stars dot the edges of the so-called dwarf irregular galaxy. Younger, bluish stars crowd its interior.
8. Martian Future?
Designed by a Dutch start-up, the theoretical Mars One capsule lands on the red planet in an artist's conception.
Mars One's designers intend to beat out NASA by sending the first humans to Mars in 2023. Project planners hope to "establish the foundation of a permanent settlement from which we will prosper, learn, and grow," according to the Mars One website.
Top image: Perseid Meteors
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