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Pulsar discovered in Cigar Galaxy

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NuSTAR found a pulse in the center of Cigar Galaxy (M82)
NuSTAR found a bright pulsar in the center of Cigar Galaxy (M82)

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).

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Tracing Curiosity’s recent trip on Mars

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Curiosity rover takes a trip exploring the Pahrump Hills outcrop
Curiosity rover takes a trip exploring the Pahrump Hills outcrop

The Mars Curiosity rover has been pretty busy the last few years, checking out all kinds of sights and samples on Mars. This map shows the Pahrump Hills area that it was exploring during the September – October months of this year. Starting off at Confidence Hills, it drilled some samples for analysis and moved along the outcrop taking breaks (shown as red dots) along the way. The white dots represent areas where Curiosity stopped to take additional pictures and data of the Pahrump Hills outcrop. The mission ended in an area dubbed White Rock.

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Scary ghost face on Mercury

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Some see a scary ghost face where other see mountains and craters from Mercury
Some see a scary ghost face where other see mountains and craters from Mercury

We often hear about people seeing shapes in unrelated objects and this is another example of this psychological phenomena (called pareidolia) from the planet Mercury. Here you can see the mountains, the craters and the shadows on this part of Mercury but if you let your imagination loose (a bit) you can also see what looks like a ghost face near the lower right portion of the picture. This scary picture was provided thanks to NASA’s narrow angle camera aboard its MESSENGER space probe.

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Shadowy Saturn and Titan in crescent phase

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Saturn and Titan are in shadows, showing a crescent phase
Saturn and Titan are in shadows, showing a crescent phase

These images of Saturn and Titan probably provided astronomers and scientists with a lot of valuable information but regardless, they are also very nice to look at (for everyone).  This crescent phase of Saturn and its moon Titan was captured by the Cassini orbiter’s on board camera systems, taken while Cassini was looking towards the sunlit side of Saturn’s rings from just above the ring plane. The spacecraft was approximately 1.7 million kilometers from Saturn when it took this violet light image in 2013.

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Cosmic clouds of a neutron star

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Chandra and WISE explore the neutron star PSR B1509-58
Chandra and WISE explore the neutron star PSR B1509-58

About 17,000 light years from Earth lies the system with a very bland name of PSR B1509-58. It consists of a spinning neutron star nebula surrounded by a cloud of energetic particles. This composite image includes X-ray emissions captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory (seen as yellow-gold coloured portions) and data from the infrared spectrum captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (seen in red, green and blue). Many people report seeing a shape that looks like a face within the infrared data from this neutron star system.

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