NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S BEST SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK LV

Week's Best Space Pictures: A Blood Moon Rises and Auroras Dance
By Jane J. Lee, National Geographic News, 10 April 2015.

We see this century's shortest eclipse and the northern lights blaze over Iceland in this week's best space pictures.

1. Night Lights

Even the northern lights dress in pastels for spring. A composite image of four pictures reveals the auroras as a palette of pale pinks, greens, and purples flickering over Iceland's Kirkjufell mountain.

2. Starry Night

Telescopes used by the European Southern Observatory capture a glittery array of stars in an image released April 8. These tiny pinpricks of light serve as a backdrop to a young star, MWC 480 (top right).

3. Frozen

A NASA satellite captured the frozen edge of East Antarctica's Princess Astrid coast (bottom), a lacey-looking band of sea ice just above it, and wispy clouds (top) floating overhead. The region's sea ice is at its minimum extent this time of year.

4. Peekaboo

A lunar eclipse on April 4 resulted in a blood moon, seen here over Valley of Fire National Park, Nevada. It was the shortest eclipse this century; totality lasted from nine to twelve minutes. The next lunar eclipse will occur on September 28, 2015.

5. Martian Mélange

Dark brown dunes encroach on the centre of a round depression (left) on Mars in an image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Rust-red cones litter the landscape on the right.

6. A Clearing in The Clouds

Clouds part over the Drake Passage (map) between the tip of South America and Antarctica, revealing multi-coloured eddies swirling below. These whorls of seawater are between a couple of kilometres to a couple hundred kilometres across.

Photo gallery by Sherry L. Brukbacher.

[Source: National Geographic News. Edited. Some links added.]