NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK LXXXII

Best New Space Pictures: Jellyfish Wave, Moons Dance, and Sun Winks
By Dan Vergano, National Geographic News, 8 November 2013.

The Jellyfish Nebula "swims" in space, the dust settles on a Martian volcano, and a "greyhound" races through the cosmos in this week's best space pictures.

1. Jellyfish Nebula Bobs Away

Photograph by Bob Franke, National Geographic Your Shot

The Jellyfish Nebula, the gas-filled remains of a distant stellar explosion, seems to swim away from remnants of its former home in a photo uploaded to Your Shot on November 2.

Some 5,200 light-years away, the nebula is joined on its left by an "emission nebula," a cloud of electrically charged gas thrown off an exploded star.

2. Dust Blankets Lava Canyon

A billowing blanket of dust swathes the flanks of Tharsis Tholus, an extinct volcano on Mars, in a photograph released November 6.

A lava channel boasts a thinner dust cover on the side of the volcano, pointing to a younger age for the time when it first flowed.

3. Stars Trail Over Highway Lights

Photograph by Sungjin Kim, National Geographic Your Shot

Northern and Southern Hemisphere star trails meet in this striking photograph submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot on November 5.

The highway outside Boeun, South Korea, serves as a dividing line mirroring the one between hemispheres, as seen in the skies above.

4. Saturn's Moons Dance

A quintet of Saturn's moons dance elegantly above the planet's famed rings in this photo taken by the Cassini spacecraft and released November 4.

In orbit around the ringed planet since 2004, Cassini has offered unparalleled views of Saturn's rings and moons, including this picture shot from slightly above the plane of the rings.

On the right, the closest moon is Rhea, which is Saturn's second-largest satellite, and in the centre is Enceladus, shining brightly with frost vented from its south pole geysers.

5. The Heart of the Heart Nebula

Photograph by Steven Coates, National Geographic Your Shot

A glowing star cluster, Melotte 15, illuminates the Heart Nebula in this photograph submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot on November 5.

Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, the nebula is also sometimes called the Running Dog Nebula because of its resemblance to a racing greyhound when viewed through a telescope.

6. Solar Eclipse Over Lake Turkana

Photograph by Juan Carlos Casado, TWAN

An annular eclipse flares briefly above Kenya's Lake Turkana last Sunday.

The solar eclipse was viewable from almost all of Africa, but only a narrow swath of the continent saw a total eclipse of the sun during the event.

Lake Turkana was one of those places that briefly saw the total eclipse. It also afforded views of an annular eclipse, which occurs when the moon almost but not quite covers the solar disc.

That allows the sun's corona to brightly rim the edges of the moon, as seen in this picture.

[Source: National Geographic News. Edited.]