Space Pictures This Week: Supernova Stripes, Trojan Moon

Striped Pom-Pom

Image courtesy CXC/NASA

Perhaps in a nod to March Madness, astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have released a new picture of the celestial "pom pom" known as the Tycho supernova remnant.

The puffy cloud of debris is all that's left of a massive star that exploded some 13,000 light-years away. Light from the powerful blast reached Earth in 1572, making the object briefly visible to the naked eye even during the day.

The new composite picture shows low-energy x-rays in red and high-energy x-rays in blue. It also reveals for the first time bright x-ray stripes—seen in white along the right edge of the remnant—supporting theories that supernovas are sources of high-speed particles known as cosmic rays.

Published March 25, 2011

"Downtown" Milky Way

Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

There's a party in our galaxy's "city center," and thousands of stars have gathered to light up the scene.

In visible light this region of the Milky Way is so bright that it's almost impossible to see what's happening. But new infrared pictures from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope—such as the one above released March 18—can reveal the raucous activity.

In the new shot, tendrils of warm gas (yellow-red) and carbon-rich dust (green) drape across the galactic center, where bright white star clusters are orbiting an unseen supermassive black hole.

Published March 25, 2011

Hello, Helene

Image courtesy NASA

Saturn's tiny moon Helene hangs like a monochrome flower against the inky black of space in a newly released picture from NASA's Cassini orbiter.

A mere 21 miles (33 kilometers) wide, Helene shares its orbit with the moon Dione, which trails behind at a fairly constant clip. This unusual grouping means that Helene and Dione are among the handful of so-called Trojan moons found only around Saturn.

Published March 25, 2011

Ring of Fire

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

A well-rounded loop of plasma erupted from the sun on March 19, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft was there to capture the action.

Known as a prominence, the cloud of charged gas had been tethered to the sun by magnetic forces, but it eventually became unstable and broke free, twisting away into space.

Published March 25, 2011

Sooty Starbirth

Image courtesy WISE/NASA

The hot, bright star CY Camelopardalis seems to glow red due to an enveloping cloud of metallic dust grains in a new picture from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, space telescope.

Strong ultraviolet radiation from the star is carving out a shell of dust made mostly of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (green), similar to soot on Earth. Clusters of reddish objects inside the warm blanket of carbon-rich dust show where new stars are being born.

Published March 25, 2011