Best Space Pictures of 2010: Odd Aurora, Ring of Fire, More

Hubble's Mystic Mountain

Image courtesy NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

A colorful, craggy column of dust and gas dubbed the Mystic Mountain stars in a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope released April 23 as part of celebrations for Hubble's 20th anniversary. The picture highlights the results of star birth in the Carina nebula. (See astronomers' picks of some of the best Hubble pictures.)

Hot, young stars in the nebula are constantly emitting radiation and charged particles that sculpt the cosmic cloud from the inside. Columns like this one are regions of matter dense enough to stand up to stellar erosion. (Find out more about the Mystic Mountain, and see a different image of the stars hidden inside the structure.)

This picture was originally published in the gallery "Space Photos This Week: Mystic Mountain, Mars Ice, More."

Published November 30, 2010

Mars and a Moonbow

Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN

Mars shines like a bright red star over a "moonbow" in fog surrounding Hawaii's Haleakala volcano in January. This photograph, originally published in "Space Photos This Week: Shuttle Launch, Moonbow," was taken as Mars was about to make its closest pass by Earth for 2010.

The lunar rainbow was created as moonlight passed through tiny droplets of water in the fog.

Published November 30, 2010

Big Bear's Sunspot

Image courtesy BBSO/NJIT

This crisp view of a sunspot, captured by New Jersey Institute of Technology's New Solar Telescope and released in August, may be the most detailed picture of its kind yet shot in visible light, astronomers say.

The 5.25-foot (1.6-meter) telescope, which became operational in 2009, sits at the school's Big Bear Solar Observatory in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. The device uses a special deformable mirror—part of what's called an adaptive optics system—to compensate for atmospheric distortions and produce ground-based images with about the same clarity as shots from orbiting observatories, experts say.

See more pictures from the Big Bear Solar Observatory in the gallery "New Sunspot Pictures: Sharpest View Yet in Visible Light."

Published November 30, 2010

Hayabusa's Fiery Return

Image courtesy NASA's DC-8 Airborne Laboratory

Like a sparkling firework, much of the Japanese space probe Hayabusa disintegrates as it reenters Earth's atmosphere on June 13. Hidden in the shower of sparks was a heat-shielded, 16-inch (40-centimeter) capsule later found to contain precious scrapings from an asteroid, which could help us understand how our planet and solar system formed.

Hayabusa is among the few spacecraft to return rock samples from space. Other such missions include the Apollo program, which retrieved moon rocks in the late 1960s and early '70s, and the comet-dust harvester Stardust, which crashed into the Utah desert at 28,900 miles (46,400 kilometers) an hour in 2006.

This picture was originally published in the feature "Space Photos This Week: Hayabusa Fireball, Whirlpools."

Published November 30, 2010

"Ephemeral" Lake

Image courtesy EROS/USGS/NASA

Patches of southern Australia's shallow Lake Eyre seem to form a grimacing face in an August 2006 satellite picture. The picture is 1 of 40 released as part of November 2010's Earth as Art 3 collection, the latest compilation of NASA and U.S. Geological Survey Landsat pictures chosen for their artistic quality.

When seasonal rains are plentiful, Lake Eyre is Australia's largest lake, according to the USGS. But it's also an "ephemeral" feature in a dry land: The lake has filled only three times during the past 150 years, the USGS noted.

Overall, "the collected images are authentic and original in the truest sense," Matt Larsen, the USGS's associate director for Climate and Land Use Change, said in a statement. "These magnificently engaging portraits of Earth encourage us all to learn more about our complex world."

(See more Earth as Art 3 pictures in "New Satellite Pictures: 'Magnificent' Views of Earth.")

Published November 30, 2010

Close Encounter With Lutetia

Image courtesy ESA

Asteroid 21 Lutetia is exposed, craters and all, in a picture captured in July by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft. Rosetta's close encounter with Lutetia revealed a battered world—a possible remnant from the birth of our solar system, astronomers say.

To snap the above image, Rosetta swooped about 1,965 miles (3,162 kilometers) above Lutetia's surface. The image is the highest-resolution photo taken of the space rock, located more than 270 million miles (440 million kilometers) away from Earth, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (Watch a video of Rosetta's flyby.)

The sharp edge visible above, at bottom, may be evidence that 81-mile-wide (130-kilometer-wide) Lutetia broke off from a "mother asteroid," said NASA space scientist Claudia Alexander, who led the United States' involvement in the Rosetta mission.

(See more: "Asteroid Pictures: Battered World Found in Lutetia.")

Published November 30, 2010

Aurora Australis From Space

Photograph courtesy NASA and NASA Earth Observatory

Even for astronauts, this May image was a rare sight indeed: an aurora hovering over the southern Indian Ocean.

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth's upper atmosphere, causing atoms of oxygen and nitrogen to gain energy and then release it in the form of light.

Auroras typically are visible only near Earth's Poles, where magnetic field lines channel charged particles toward the planet. But this aurora australis, photographed from the International Space Station, occurred during a geomagnetic storm, which can temporarily shift the planet's magnetic field—and hence its auroras—closer to the Equator.

This picture was originally published in the gallery "Space Photos This Week: Odd Aurora, Solar Flare, More."

Published November 30, 2010

Gulf Oil Spill's Spread

Image by DigitalGlobe via Getty Images

A satellite picture taken in April captures a small plane flying over rust-colored "streamers" of crude oil visible on the surface of the Gulf, about a week after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

The extent of the spread made it more difficult for authorities to execute one of their planned strategies for containing the spill—controlled burns of the oil. (Related: "Oil Slick May Be Burned to Help Stop U.S. Rig Spill.")

This image was originally published in "Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Aerial Views Show Leak's Size."

Published November 30, 2010

Star Death in 3-D

Image courtesy ESO

The hourglass shape of the supernova remnant SN 1987A isn't as well balanced as thought, according to an August picture of the exploded star.

Using data on the remnant from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers were able to confirm that, when massive stars explode, some of the ejected material gets shot into space faster than other debris, as predicted by computer models.

This image was originally published in "Space Photos This Week: 'Moontrail,' Sun Eruption, More."

See more amazing pictures in "Best News Pictures of 2010: Your Picks From National Geographic News."

Published November 30, 2010