Space Pictures This Week: Pulsing Crab, Moon Halo, More

Gamma-Ray Crab

Image courtesy David A. Aguilar, ESA/NASA

An artist's concept of a pulsar—a fast-spinning neutron star that sends out beams of radiation from its poles—is superimposed on a Hubble Space Telescope picture of the Crab Nebula in a newly released image.

The cloud of gas is the remnant of a massive star that went supernova, dazzling sky-watchers on Earth who saw light from the blast in 1054. It was already known that the dense core of the dead star, called a neutron star, sits at the center of the Crab Nebula.

Recently, though, scientists using the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System in Arizona detected pulses of gamma rays coming from the pulsar with energies exceeding a hundred billion electron volts-a million times more energetic than medical x-rays.

Published October 14, 2011

Lunar Halo

Photograph by Sean King, My Shot

A lunar halo circles the moon over the Kilauea volcano's caldera in Hawaii on October 8.

Lunar halos form when moonlight interacts with the pencil-shaped ice crystals in thin, wispy cirrus clouds, according to NASA. Since the crystals have no particular orientation, the refracted light forms a circle around the moon.

On his way back to his car after searching for lunar rainbows, photographer Sean King threw one last look over his shoulder and "all of a sudden it looked like the moon started pulling clouds into a ring around it," he recalled.

(See picture: "Double Sun Dog Dazzles Icy Omaha.")

Published October 14, 2011

"Failed" Star Cluster

Image courtesy SONYC/Subaru

The young star cluster NGC 1333, pictured above, is full of "failed" stars, according to astronomers using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Recent deep surveys conducted with the two telescopes revealed more than two dozen new brown dwarfs between NGC 1333 and the rho Ophiuchi star cluster. Brown dwarfs are free-floating objects several times the mass of Jupiter that glow brightly in their youths but are not massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores. (See "Coldest Star Found-No Hotter Than Fresh Coffee.")

The researchers were surprised to find that, when they added their finds to previously known brown dwarfs, NGC 1333 appears to harbor half as many of these astronomical oddballs as normal stars.

Published October 14, 2011

Lights Over Iceland

Photograph by Olgeir Andresson, My Shot

Auroras light up the sky over Njardvik, Iceland, on October 9.

This "eerily beautiful phenomenon," as photographer Olgeir Andresson described the aurora, is triggered when charged particles from the sun slam into Earth's magnetic field.

As solar particles get funneled along Earth's field lines toward the Poles, they collide with molecules in the atmosphere, infusing them with extra energy. The molecules in turn release the energy as light.

(Related: "New Aurora Pictures: 'Severe' Sun Storm Brightens Skies.")

Published October 14, 2011

Epic Endeavour

Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

The Martian landscape stretches out like an ancient Roman road in a picture taken by the NASA rover Opportunity as it approached Endeavour Crater. The picture is one of 309 images included in a newly released video of Opportunity's journey from Victoria Crater to Endeavour.

Moving carefully and stopping occasionally to investigate interesting features, the aging rover took three years to travel 13 miles (21 kilometers).

Published October 14, 2011

Rocket Blastoff

Photograph by Yue Yuewei, Xinhua/Zuma Press

Carrying a French-made communications satellite, China's Long March-3B rocket carrier blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country's southwestern Sichuan Province on October 7.

The European Eutelsat-W3C satellite will provide new capacities for broadcasting, telecommunications, and broadband services, according to China's state-run news agency Xinhua.

(Also see "NASA Satellite Debris Likely Fell in Ocean, May Never Be Found.")

Published October 14, 2011

Yukon From Above

Image courtesy Landsat/NASA

Like branching blood vessels, the rivers and streams of the Yukon Delta flow toward the Bering Sea in a recently released picture taken by NASA's Landsat 7 satellite.

The Yukon River originates in British Columbia, Canada, and travels through Yukon Territory before entering Alaska, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. In southwestern Alaska, the Yukon Delta spreads out in a vast tundra plain.

(Read about the "ghost ship" of the Yukon, discovered in 2009.)

Published October 14, 2011