Space Photos: The Most Amazing Images This Week!
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com, 21 September 2019.
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com, 21 September 2019.
A region of star-formation is so colorful that it resembles fireworks, southern lights shine over Antarctica, and the International Space Station views a sparkling sight as it flies over the Nile river at night. These are just some of the top photos this week from Space.com.
1. 'Dove' Has Bird's Eye View of Drone Attack
From space, one bread-loaf sized satellite could see the aftermath of last week's drone attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. An Earth-observing satellite called Dove, from the commercial company Planet, caught this sight of black billowing smoke thanks to its resolution of 10 feet to 16.5 feet (3 to 5 meters). According to the New York Times, Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the Sept. 14 drone attack that struck at least 17 Saudi oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais.
2. Martian Avalanche
Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Last spring, a NASA mission flying over Mars captured imagery of an avalanche near the planet's north pole. The space agency released the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's May 29th image last week (Sept. 11), which features a plume of red dirt ascending into the Martian sky due to the warming that occurs on the Red Planet during springtime; this heating destabilizes ice in polar deposits, causing material to break loose and dust to be kicked up, according to agency officials.
3. The Vibrant Colors of Rho Ophiuchi
Image credit: Miguel Claro
No, this isn't the sight of fireworks, but the colors in this composite image from astrophotographer Miguel Claro could have fooled anyone. This is in fact a dense cloud of interstellar dust and gas, known otherwise as a nebula. This particular structure is Rho Ophiuchi, the closest star-forming region to the solar system. This final image is the product of 67 combined frames with a total exposure time of 117 minutes.
4. Third SpaceShipTwo Vehicle Gets Wings
Image credit: Virgin Galactic 2019
Although Virgin Galactic hasn't yet announced the name of its third SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, company representatives did recently share that its main body, or fuselage, has been mated with the finished wing section. This vehicle's predecessor is VSS Unity, which has reached suborbital space twice over the last year and is undergoing work in Mojave, California, where the third SpaceShipTwo is also being assembled.
5. SOFIA Awaits First Flight Over Europe
Image credit: DLR/NASA via Space.com
SOFIA, a stratosphere-flying observatory run by a joint program between NASA and Germany's space program, DLR, is seen here in Palmdale, California before its flight to Germany early this week. On Wednesday (Sept. 18) it took off again for its two-day observation mission high above Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy where it studied the environment around two black holes circling each other within a distant galaxy.
6. China Found Weird Stuff on the Moon
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP via Space.com
China's Yutu-2 moon rover captured this image from the edge of the small crater on the far side of the moon where it found a mysterious material described as "胶状物" (jiao zhuang wu), which can be translated as "gel-like." Our Space, a Chinese-language science outreach publication, announced the findings on Tuesday (Aug. 17). The material highlighted in the center of the crater image resembles a sample of impact glass found during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, according to a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame.
7. The Nile Delta at Night
Image credit: NASA
City lights around the Nile River and its delta sparkle by night in this stunning view from the International Space Station. When an Expedition 60 astronaut captured this photo, the International Space Station was flying 255 miles (410 kilometers) above the border between Sudan and Egypt around 1 a.m. local time on Sept. 2. - Hanneke Weitering
8. Southern Lights in Antarctica
Image credit: A. Mancini/ESA/IPEV/PNRA
A brilliant aurora appears to rise like a glowing, green smoke plume from Concordia research station in Antarctica in this photo by European Space Agency (ESA) photographer Alessandro Mancini. "I turn my gaze away from the horizon and dusk, there is a stripe in the sky that is not the Milky Way, at first just white and cloud-like, but there is no doubt - the green hues are visible and the curtain-like waves in the sky are unmistakable," ESA's on-site doctor Nadja Albertsen wrote in a blog post after witnessing the aurora at the remote research station. - Hanneke Weitering
9. Noctilucent Clouds Seen from Space
A wispy layer of mesospheric clouds illuminates Earth's atmosphere in this photo taken from the International Space Station. European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano tweeted this photo from space, writing, "Mesospheric clouds tinge the sunset, south of the Indian Ocean." Mesospheric clouds, also known as noctilucent clouds, from 47 to 53 miles (76 to 85 kilometers) above Earth's surface, an altitude where water vapor can freeze into clouds of ice crystals. For comparison, the International Space Station orbits at an average altitude of 250 miles (400 km). - Hanneke Weitering
10. Hubble Eyes a Faint Galaxy in Cetus
Image credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble/LEGUS/B. Tully/D. Calzetti/Judy Schmidt
The faint galaxy UGC 695 shimmers in deep space in this view from the Hubble Space Telescope. Located 30 million light-years away within the constellation Cetus (The Sea Monster), UGC 695 is considered a low-surface-brightness galaxy, which means that it's even dimmer than the background brightness of Earth’s atmosphere, which makes it difficult to observe. While galaxies like this don't contain as many stars as their brighter counterparts, they are rich with dark matter. - Hanneke Weitering
Top image: Young stellar objects in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team/Wikimedia Commons.
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