Space pictures
Curiosity rover captured this rock formation at an area called “Whale Rock” near the base of Mount Sharp. We see similar rocks formed by moving water here on Earth. NASA scientists believe that the cross-bedding seen in the above picture from Mars also points to a time in the planet’s past when water was present and waves may have loosened sediment and created this type of rock formation. This picture was taken by Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam).
The one thing that never really gets old is a visual representation of the size of Saturn, especially when compared to some of its moons. This is one such case where the Cassini-Huygens mission, which is a joint US-Europe venture, continues to do yeoman’s works by providing us amazing pictures of Saturn and its neighborhood. We have circled the small Enceladus (only 504 kilometers across) as it was photographed by the wide angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft, from a distance of approximately 948,000 kilometers from Saturn.
Before its eventual landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, this would have been the closet view that we had seen of a comet. ESA’s Philae lander took this picture of the comet while it was descending towards it, from a distance of just 130 feet (40 meters). This picture was taken using the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS) which is mounted on the bottom of Philae. We can clearly see that this comet is covered by dust and debris ranging from fine-grain particles to rocks of varying size. The slight depressions and elevations across the surface of this comet are also discernible from this picture.
After being delayed by a day, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with NASA’s Orion spacecraft successfully launched from the US Air Force’s space complex at Cape Canaveral. The powerful rocket system helped the unmanned spacecraft conduct its maiden voyage which included traveling 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) from Earth before Orion’s 4.5 hour journey ended with a splashdown and successful recovery in the Pacific Ocean. This inaugural test was used to validate the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle’s (MPCV) all important heat shield and some of the avionics for a spacecraft that NASA hopes will one day allow manned missions to Mars, asteroids and possibly deeper into space. Continue reading
This composite, multi-spectrum picture of the Cigar galaxy (M82) includes images taken under the visible light spectrum by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona and in the x-ray spectrum by NuSTAR and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The magenta coloured center represents high-energy x-rays streaming from a rare and brightest to date pulsar which is also known as an ultraluminous x-ray source, or ULX.
Low-energy x-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are coloured blue while the higher-energy x-ray data from NuSTAR is the pink areas of the image. NASA’s NuSTAR mission spotted some pulsing x-rays from this ULX (called M82 X-2) leading scientists to discover this pulsar (a pulsar is a type of neutron star that sends out rotating beams of high-energy radiation).
