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Saturday 23 April 2016

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC'S BEST SPACE PICTURES THIS WEEK CVII


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Week's Best Space Pictures: Hubble Turns 26
By Michael Greshko,
National Geographic News, 22 April 2016.

This week, National Geographic celebrates the Hubble Space Telescope’s 26th birthday with a roundup of its best pictures from the past year, including colourful clouds, gigantic pillars, and glittering galaxies.

1. Candy-Coloured Bubble

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The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7653, is an emission nebula located 8,000 light-years away. This stunning new image, released on Thursday, was captured to celebrate Hubble’s 26th year in space.

2. Fluffy Filaments

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This image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3521 isn’t out of focus. The galaxy - a flocculent spiral - has fluffy patches of stars and dust scattered throughout its disk, lending it a woolly appearance.

3. Standing Strong

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These pillars of dense gas and dust surround the star cluster Westerlund 2. They are several light-years long and are thought to be incubators for new stars. Hubble made this photograph in 2015 to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

4. Beautiful Disaster

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Hubble sees a planetary nebula known as NGC 6565, which formed during the death throes of a distant star. The star flung off its outermost layers, and radiation from its exposed core helped produce the brilliantly coloured cloud.

5. Hustle and Bustle

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In July 2015, Hubble saw the Lagoon Nebula, which has a deceptively tranquil name: The hazy region of gas and dust is churning with intense winds blowing off hot stars and energetic star formation.

6. Centre of Attention

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This infrared image shows the center of the Milky Way, 27,000 light-years away from Earth. Using infrared allows astronomers to see through the galaxy's dark, opaque dust and peer at its supermassive black hole, seen at centre.

7. In the Abstract

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Most galaxies possess a majestic spiral or elliptical structure, but about a quarter instead sport messy, indefinable shapes, like the irregular galaxy NGC 5408 seen here.

8. Cosmic Opal

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This bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. It sits roughly 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius and is just over half a light-year wide.

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

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