NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK LVIII

Space Pictures This Week: Martian Dust Devils, Weekend Spacewalk
By Jane J. Lee, National Geographic News, 17 May 2013.

Astronauts parachute to Earth and the sun goes loopy in this week's best new space pictures.

1. Emergency Spacewalk

Flight engineers on the International Space Station (ISS), including U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy (pictured), completed a 5.5-hour spacewalk on May 11 to repair a leaky coolant pump.

The pump provides ammonia coolant to systems on the ISS responsible for generating electricity for the station.

The leak was initially discovered on May 9 by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who reported seeing flakes coming off the ISS. (Related: "Serious Space Station Leak Provokes Weekend Spacewalk.")

2. Sea of Sand

A dry riverbed (seen in light blue) cuts across the Namib desert (map) in Namibia, in a picture released by the European Space Agency on May 10.

Taken by the Korean satellite Kompsat-2, the white "waves" in the image that appear to be breaking along the red sand dunes are actually salt deposits. (Read about another image of the Namib desert taken by photographer Frans Lanting for National Geographic.)

3. Star Factory

Telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tuscon, Arizona, captured this image of Nebula Sh2-239 using blue, green, orange, and red filters.

Released this week, the image shows a region of the Taurus molecular cloud - about 450 light-years away from Earth. The nebula is full of stars in various stages of formation, from very new to old and established.

4. Return Trip to Earth

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft returned three International Space Station crew members to Earth after a five-month stay in orbit.

The capsule touched down in a remote area near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (map) on May 14.

5. Loopy Flare

Fireworks erupted from the sun on May 12 when an X1.7-class solar flare burbled into view. X-class flares are the most intense categorization; the number behind it describes its strength. An X2 is twice as powerful as an X1, and so on.

The image, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, is a combination of two pictures taken at two different wavelengths of light. (Related: "Solar Storm Heading Toward Earth.")

6. Martian Devils

Like a toddler let loose on a wall with a black marker, dust devils on Mars leave black streaks across sand dunes in a picture released May 15 by the University of Arizona HiRISE project, a satellite orbiting the red planet.

Wind from the dust devils picks up the surface layer of lighter-coloured sand, exposing the darker layer underneath. (See more pictures of Mars.)

7. Starry Night

The Milky Way stretches across a winter night's sky over Chile's La Silla Observatory in an image released May 13 by the European Space Agency.

Located in the Atacama desert (map), La Silla is perched on a ridge that's 7,800 feet (2,400 meters) high.

The instruments pictured, from left to right, are the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope (with snow on the dome), the ESO 1-meter Schmidt telescope, the 3.58-meter New Technology Telescope, and the ESO 3.6-meter telescope.

8. Celestial Motion

A telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tuscon, Arizona, captured an image - released this week - of a 45,000-year-old nebula moving through space.

The orange smear (upper right) is a result of Nebula Sh2-68's travels, while the blue haze in the centre is caused by energized atoms of oxygen. (See more pictures of nebulae.)

[Source: National Geographic News. Edited.]