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Star shots: 32 of NASA's most incredible space photos

Text: Noelle Faulkner

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Big Babies in the Rosette Nebula: "This image from ESA Herschel Space Observatory shows of a portion of the Rosette nebula, a stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the Monoceros, or Unicorn, constellation."

01

Spacelab: "Onboard the Space Shuttle Orbiter Columbia (STS-35), the various components of the Astro-1 payload are seen backdropped against a blue and white Earth. The Astro Observatory was designed to explore the universe by observing and measuring the ultraviolet radiation from celestial objects. Astronomical targets of observation selected for Astro missions included planets, stars, star clusters, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, quasars, remnants of exploded stars (supernovae), clouds of gas and dust (nebulae), and the interstellar medium."

02

Andromeda Galaxy: "This image is from NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an observation of the large galaxy in Andromeda, Messier 31. The Andromeda galaxy is the most massive in the local group of galaxies that includes our Milky Way."

03

Barely Bisected Rings: "Saturn's shadow stretched beyond the edge of its rings for many years after the Cassini spacecraft first arrived at Saturn, casting an ever-lengthening shadow that reached its maximum extent at the planet's 2009 equinox. This image captured the moment in 2015 when the shrinking shadow just barely reached across the entire main ring system. The shadow will continue to shrink until the planet's northern summer solstice, at which point it will once again start lengthening across the rings, reaching across them in 2019. Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis. And, just as on Earth, as the sun climbs higher in the sky, shadows get shorter. The projection of the planet's shadow onto the rings shrinks and grows over the course of its 29-year-long orbit, as the angle of the sun changes with respect to Saturn's equator."

04

Cascading Post-coronal Loops: "An active region that had just rotated into view blasted out a coronal mass ejection, which was immediately followed by a bright series of post-coronal loops seeking to reorganize that region's magnetic field (April 19, 2017). We have observed this phenomenon numerous times, but this one was one of the longest and clearest sequences we have seen in years. The bright loops are actually charged particles spinning along the magnetic field lines. The action was captured in a combination of two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light over a period of about 20 hours."

05

Comets Kick up Dust in Helix Nebula: "This infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet often photographed by amateur astronomers for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye."

06

Curiosity Self-Portrait at Murray Buttes: "This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Quela" drilling location in the "Murray Buttes" area on lower Mount Sharp. Key features on the skyline of this panorama are the dark mesa called "M12" to the left of the rover's mast and pale, upper Mount Sharp to the right of the mast. The top of M12 stands about 23 feet (7 meters) above the base of the sloping piles of rocks just behind Curiosity. The scene combines approximately 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Most of the component images were taken on Sept. 17, 2016, during the 1,463rd Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars."

07

Cygnus Loop Nebula: "Wispy tendrils of hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop nebula, taken by NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away."

08

Herschel Sees Through Ghostly Pillars: "This image of the Eagle nebula shows the self-emission of the intensely cold nebula gas and dust as never seen before; the nebula intricate tendril nature, with vast cavities forms an almost cave-like surrounding to the famous pillars."

09

History of Hubble Space Telescope (HST): "In this stunning image provided by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Omega Nebula (M17) resembles the fury of a raging sea, showing a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulfur. The nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, is a hotbed of newly born stars residing 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The wavelike patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from the young massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red in this photograph. The green represents an even hotter gas that masks background structures. Various gases represented with color are: sulfur, represented in red; hydrogen, green; and oxygen blue."

10

A Stellar Fingerprint: "“Showcased at the centre of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is an emission-line star known as IRAS 12196-6300. Located just under 2300 light-years from Earth, this star displays prominent emission lines, meaning that the star’s light, dispersed into a spectrum, shows up as a rainbow of colours marked with a characteristic pattern of dark and bright lines. The characteristics of these lines, when compared to the “fingerprints” left by particular atoms and molecules, can be used to reveal IRAS 12196-6300’s chemical composition. Under 10 million years old and not yet burning hydrogen at its core, unlike the Sun, this star is still in its infancy."

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Age-Defying Star: "An age-defying star called IRAS 19312+1950 exhibits features characteristic of a very young star and a very old star. The object stands out as extremely bright inside a large, chemically rich cloud of material, as shown in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. IRAS 19312+1950 is the bright red star in the center of this image. A NASA-led team of scientists thinks the star -- which is about 10 times as massive as our sun and emits about 20,000 times as much energy -- is a newly forming protostar. That was a big surprise, because the region had not been known as a stellar nursery before. But the presence of a nearby interstellar bubble, which indicates the presence of a recently formed massive star, also supports this idea."

12

Hubble Captures View of Mystic Mountain: "NASA Hubble Space Telescope captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula."

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Hubble Secret Galaxy

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International Space Station: "The International Space Station continues its orbit around the Earth as Expedition 50 astronauts captured this night image of sparkling cities and a sliver of daylight framing the northern hemisphere."

15

Jupiter's Great Red Spot: "This image, taken by the JunoCam imager on NASA's Juno spacecraft, highlights a swirling storm just south of one of the white oval storms on Jupiter. The image was taken on March 27, 2017, as the Juno spacecraft performed a close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 20,000 kilometers from the planet. Citizen scientist Jason Major enhanced the colour and contrast in this image, turning the picture into a Jovian work of art. He then cropped it to focus our attention on this beautiful example of Jupiter's spinning storms."

16

Most Detailed Image of the Crab Nebula: "The Crab Nebula is one of the most intricately structured and highly dynamical objects ever observed. The new Hubble image of the Crab was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope."

17

Hubble Sees a Horsehead of a Different Colour: "Backlit wisps along the Horsehead Nebula upper ridge are being illuminated by Sigma Orionis, a young five-star system just off the top of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope."

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The Infrared Helix: "The Helix nebula exhibits complex structure on the smallest visible scales. It is composed of gaseous shells and disks puffed out by a dying sun-like star."

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Looking Up at Mars Rover Curiosity in Buckskin Selfie: "This low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target called "Buckskin" on lower Mount Sharp. The selfie combines several component images taken by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Aug. 5, 2015, during the 1,065th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars."

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NuSTAR Stares at the Sun: "Flaring, active regions of our sun are highlighted in this image combining observations from several telescopes. High-energy X-rays from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) are shown in blue; low-energy X-rays from Japan's Hinode spacecraft are green; and extreme ultraviolet light from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is yellow and red. All three telescopes captured their solar images around the same time on April 29, 2015. The NuSTAR image is a mosaic made from combining smaller images."

21

Orion Dreamy Stars: "A colony of hot, young stars is stirring up the cosmic scene in this new picture from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. The image shows the Orion nebula, a happening place where stars are born."

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Rotten Egg Nebula: "Violent gas collisions that produced supersonic shock fronts in a dying star are seen in a new, detailed image from NASA Hubble Space Telescope."

23

Scenic Shock: "Saturn northern storm marches through the planet atmosphere in the top right of this false-color mosaic from NASA Cassini spacecraft."

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Spokes Sighted Again!: "his image from the Cassini spacecraft shows a ghostly white streak, called a spoke, in Saturn B ring. This is the first sighting of a spoke in nearly a year, and the first spoke seen by Cassini on the sunlit side of the rings."

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Twin Jet Nebula: "The Twin Jet Nebula is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula. Bipolar planetary nebulae are formed when the central object is not a single star, but a binary system, Studies have shown that the nebula’s size increases with time, and measurements of this rate of increase suggest that the stellar outburst that formed the lobes occurred just 1200 years ago."

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Orion Nebula and Bow Shock: "Astronomers using NASA Hubble Space Telescope have found a bow shock around a very young star in the nearby Orion nebula, an intense star-forming region of gas and dust."

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Rebel Rebel: "Most galaxies possess a majestic spiral or elliptical structure. About a quarter of galaxies, though, defy such conventional, rounded aesthetics, instead sporting a messy, indefinable shape. Known as irregular galaxies, this group includes NGC 5408, the galaxy that has been snapped here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. English polymath John Herschel recorded the existence of NGC 5408 in June 1834. Astronomers had long mistaken NGC 5408 for a planetary nebula, an expelled cloud of material from an aging star. Instead, bucking labels, NGC 5408 turned out to be an entire galaxy, located about 16 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur)."

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Waving Goodbye: "This planetary nebula is called PK 329-02.2 and is located in the constellation of Norma in the southern sky. It is also sometimes referred to as Menzel 2, or Mz 2. When stars that are around the mass of the Sun reach their final stages of life, they shed their outer layers into space, which appear as glowing clouds of gas called planetary nebulae. The ejection of mass in stellar burnout is irregular and not symmetrical, so that planetary nebulae can have very complex shapes. In the case of Menzel 2 the nebula forms a winding blue cloud that perfectly aligns with two stars at its centre. In 1999 astronomers discovered that the star at the upper right is in fact the central star of the nebula, and the star to the lower left is probably a true physical companion of the central star. For tens of thousands of years the stellar core will be cocooned in spectacular clouds of gas and then, over a period of a few thousand years, the gas will fade away into the depths of the Universe. The curving structure of Menzel 2 resembles a last goodbye before the star reaches its final stage of retirement as a white dwarf."

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A Cauldron of Stars at the Galaxy Centre: "This dazzling infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy."

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A Cosmic Couple: "Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. Both objects, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are found in the constellation of Sagittarius and lie 15 000 light-years away."

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A Distinctly Disorganised Dwarf: "Despite being less famous than their elliptical and spiral galactic cousins, irregular dwarf galaxies, such as the one captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, are actually one of the most common types of galaxy in the Universe. Known as UGC 4459, this dwarf galaxy is located approximately 11 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). UGC 4459’s diffused and disorganised appearance is characteristic of an irregular dwarf galaxy. Lacking a distinctive structure or shape, irregular dwarf galaxies are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge — a huge, tightly packed central group of stars — nor any trace of spiral arms — regions of stars extending from the centre of the galaxy. Astronomers suspect that some irregular dwarf galaxies were once spiral or elliptical galaxies, but were later deformed by the gravitational pull of nearby objects. Rich with young blue stars and older red stars, UGC 4459 has a stellar population of several billion. Observations with Hubble have shown that because of their low masses, star formation is very low compared to larger galaxies. Only very little of their original gas has been turned into stars. Thus, these small galaxies are interesting to study to better understand primordial environments and the star formation process."

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From celestial galaxies to mind-bending nebulas, these are some of the most beautiful images taken in space

Finding yourself seeking an escape on this dreary winter Monday? Us too. With news that the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered yet another "hidden" galaxy, we decided to dive into the celestial beauty of NASA's image archive to unearth some of the most increidble images to come from Hubble, Cassini Space Craft, Juno Spacecraft, Mars Curiosity Rover and beyond...

photography

Noelle Faulkner

Space

NASA

Stars

Planets

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