NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK XC

Best New Space Pictures: Martian Sands, Coma Cluster
By Dan Vergano, National Geographic News, 17 January 2014.

Young stars flee their nursery while others wheel above the Himalayan mountains, just two of the thrills in the week's new space pictures.

1. Bright Young Things

Billowing from the fiery forge at the heart of the Orion Nebula, young stars (shown in red) flee from the more massive ones at the heart of the stellar nursery, revealed in this view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope released on January 15.

Spanning some 40 light-years, the infrared image of the nebula is filled with these early "protostars." Astronomers study these youngsters to see how stars such as our own sun were born. (See more nebula pictures.)

One of the red dots along the filaments streaming to the left of the nebula's heart, for example, is a recently discovered protostar, HOPS 68. It is surrounded by sandy dust, future planet-making materials to build worlds around the star.

2. Frozen Lake

Old Man Winter has painted the prairie white at Lake Sharpe, South Dakota, as shown in an International Space Station view released this week by NASA. (Related: "Best Satellite Pictures: Winning 'Earth as Art' Shots From NASA.")

Lake Sharpe, a reservoir behind the Big Bend Dam on the Missouri River, is some 80 miles (120 kilometres) long. In the centre of the image are circular, irrigated farm fields, also draped in snow.

The dam stops the mighty Missouri River from straightening its flow by pinching off the ends of the U-shaped lake, separated by only 0.6 mile (a kilometre) of riverbank.

3. Plankton Swirls

Bright blue and blooming, plankton eddies swirl in the warm spring waters of the southeastern Indian Ocean, as seen in an image by NASA's Aqua satellite released January 14.

Churning waters revealed by the eddies are believed to shuttle nutrients from deep water up to the surface, feeding the blooms.

Drawn from the depths, the calcium carbonate that builds the shells of the microscopic plankton gives the eddies their aquamarine vibrancy. (Also see "Pictures: Glowing Blue Waves Explained.")

4. Have Satellite, Will Travel

NASA engineers slide their newest communication satellite, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-L), into its capsule covering in a picture released January 10.

The TDRS-L - set to launch on January 23 - is one of eight satellites intended to ensure continuous communication with NASA's observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station.

5. Starry Night

Stars trail high over Nanda Devi, one of the highest peaks in India, in a long-exposure picture released by the night-sky photography community The World at Night (TWAN) on January 14.

A World Heritage Site, the mountain is renowned for its stark beauty and fields of alpine flowers. (See "India: Adventure in the Himalaya.")

Some 25,646 feet (7,817 meters) tall, the mountain is famed in Hindu lore, and is home to rare animals such as the Asiatic black bear, snow leopard, and blue sheep.

6. Coma Cluster

A gathering of galaxies, the Coma Cluster gleams in this Hubble Space Telescope image released January 13. The misty halos in the foreground are elliptical galaxies that are home to millions of stars. (See also: "Unknown Structures Tug at Our Universe.")

Even farther away than the 350 million light-years to the Coma Cluster, more distant spiral galaxies surround the scene, as revealed by Hubble's high-resolution view of deep space.

7. Volcanic Vents

A whole lot of shaking - and melting - went on at Cerberus Fossae, volcanic fissures on the Martian plain. Both earthquakes and volcanism carved these vents long ago, as shown in this colorized view revealing lava flows. This picture was released January 15 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera team. (See more of National Geographic's Mars pictures.)

8. Largest Chasm in Solar System

Sunlight dances across a branch of the largest chasm in the solar system in a picture released January 9 by HiRISE. (See also: "Sightseeing on Mars.")

Tithonium Chasma is just one branch of Valles Marineris, which stretches some 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) across the face of Mars. Seen from overheard, light and dark strips of sediment are shown lining the chasm.

Astronomers suspect the fine lines etched across those sandy layers may date to a change in the tilt of the red planet hundreds of millions of years ago. An ancient shift from a 50° planetary tilt to today's more modest 25° one may have melted ice and released the water that etched the channels.

9. Dunes of Mars

Desert dunes seem to creep slowly across the Martian plain in this HiRISE camera image published January 15.

Such "barchan" dunes form when winds blow in one direction, like this one on the Hellas impact basin region of Mars. There, these dunes form downwind of mesas covering the basin.

[Source: National Geographic News. Edited.]