NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S BEST SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK XXII

Week's Best Space Pictures: A Death Echoes, Space Trash Blazes, And Stars Wheel
By Jane J. Lee, National Geographic News, 22 August 2014.

A supernova shines, debris streaks across space, and stars wheel around a tower.

1. Death Throes

The irregular shock wave from an ancient supernova glows in blues in this image released August 21.

Warm dust particles give off infrared light (coloured in red and green above), while the heat generated by the shock wave produces x-rays (coloured blue). This supernova is located 7,000 light-years from Earth, and the shock wave is 10 light-years across.

2. Breaking Up

A Cygnus commercial cargo carrier breaks up - as intended - as it falls to Earth on August 17. The image, taken by an Expedition 40 crewmember on the International Space Station, captured the fiery end of what was essentially a trash run.

3. Thunderstorms From Space

Severe thunderstorms tower over South Carolina. A NASA ER-2 aircraft captured this image as it flew above the fray at 65,000 feet (19,800 meters).

4. Star Trails

Stars wheel above a tower in Euvoia, Greece, on August 19. The long-exposure image captures more than three hours of the night sky, creating a circular pattern of stars as Earth rotates about the North Pole.

5. Celestial Smudge

The Silver Needle galaxy, officially named NGC 4244, is a loosely wound spiral galaxy seen side-on here in an image released August 18. It is 65,000 light-years across and resides roughly 13.5 million light-years away from Earth.

6. Stellar Nurseries

Two star-forming regions in the southern Milky Way are shown cloaked in red in an image released by the European Space Agency on August 20. The bright red blob of gas, dust, and stars on the left resides in the Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way - about 20,000 light-years from Earth. The blob on the right, known as NGC 3576, resides about 10,000 light-years away.

[Source: National Geographic News. Edited.]