Space Photos This Week: Leaky "Heart," Sun Devil, More

Plasma Devil

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

In late October a mass of charged gas swirled off the sun's surface like a dust devil, as seen in a newly released picture from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The plasma danced for more than two days while SDO's extreme-ultraviolet cameras took in the show. A smaller, shorter-lived eruption—visible in this October 28 frame—also flared up nearby.

Published November 10, 2010

Thin Is In?

Image courtesy ESA/NASA

No, the Hubble Space Telescope is not doing ads for ultrathin notebook computers. The object seen above is actually an unusually slender galaxy seen edge-on.

Dubbed NGC 4452, this galaxy was first spotted in 1784 by astronomer William Herschel, who noted the object's elongated shape. But Hubble's new shot, released November 8, reveals the galaxy in unprecedented detail, including the bright dot of the galaxy's core.

Published November 10, 2010

Fuel Leak

Photograph courtesy NASA

A worker helps detach a vent line from the external fuel tank of the space shuttleDiscovery on November 9, while the craft sits at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A hydrogen gas leak at the ground umbilical carrier plate, where the vent line connects to the tank, caused NASA to scrub the shuttle's planned launch on November 5. Discovery won't try to lift off again until at least November 30, NASA officials announced last week.

Published November 10, 2010

China Rocket

Photograph by Sun Zifa, Imaginechina/AP

A Long March 4C rocket lifts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China on November 5 carrying a new weather satellite.

The satellite is the second to launch in China's Fengyun-3 series of meteorological probes. Once in-orbit testing is complete, China's National Satellite Meteorological Center will use the craft to improve the Asian country's medium-range weather forecasting capabilities.

Published November 10, 2010

Galactic Atoms for Peace

Image courtesy ESO

It's fusion, on a cosmic scale: A new picture offers an unprecedented view of the galaxy merger collectively known as Atoms-for-Peace. Formally dubbed NGC 7252, the object was nicknamed for a 1953 campaign by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to promote peaceful uses of nuclear power.

The new shot, taken by the European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in Chile, shows the loops of material created as gas and stars were ripped out of the colliding galaxies and wrapped around their joint core. The loops give the galaxy its odd shape, which is reminiscent of a textbook drawing of electrons orbiting an atom.

Published November 10, 2010