Space Pictures This Week: Cosmic Flower, Inside-Out Star

Artistic Aurora

Photograph by Tommy Eliassen, My Shot

Northern lights paint the sky in a picture taken from Norway in 2011 and recently submitted to National Geographic's My Shot.

The late October sky show had been triggered by an intense geomagnetic storm that spawned auroras across the Northern Hemisphere—including blood-red auroras seen in the U.S. South (pictures).

Published April 6, 2012

Eight-Bit Supernova

Image courtesy U. Hwang and J. Laming, CXC/NASA

Looking straight out of a classic video game, a new "element map" of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A shows where the different layers of the original star ended up three hundred years after the explosion.

Made with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the new map suggests that the stellar explosion somehow turned the star inside out. For instance, most of the remnant's pure iron—an element thought to have been made near the dying star's core—is now found at the object's outer edges.

Published April 6, 2012

Firing Thrusters

Photograph courtesy Don Pettit, NASA via ESA

Bright light from a spacecraft's thrusters mirror the pools of city lights on Earth in a picture taken from the International Space Station on March 28. Astronaut Don Pettit captured the image as the Automated Transfer Vehicle Edoardo Amaldi approached the station for docking.

While docked to the ISS, the ATV's thrusters will be fired again in a series of "reboost" maneuvers to keep the station in an ideal orbit. The thrusters can also be used as needed for moving the station to avoid collisions with space debris.

(Related: "Space Debris: Five Unexpected Objects That Fell to Earth.")

Published April 6, 2012

Supernova Factory

Image courtesy T. A. Rector/UAA, H. Schweiker/WIYN, and NOAO/NSF

Stars glitter in the spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 6946, seen in a recently released picture from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

Over the past century, eight supernovae have been identified in the arms of this galaxy, according to Kitt Peak, making NGC 6946 one of the most prolific known galaxies for stellar explosions.

(Related: "New Supernova Found 'Next Door'—Getting Brighter.")

Published April 6, 2012

On the Ball

Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA

Saturn's largest moon Titan seems to hover in space like a ball caught mid-bounce in a recently released picture from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a significant atmosphere. It's also the only object, other than Earth, with stable bodies of liquid on its surface—in Titan's case, lakes of liquid methane.

Published April 6, 2012

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Photograph by Swee Ong Wu, My Shot

Published April 6, 2012