Space Pictures This Week: Partial Eclipse, Dragon Capture

Rainbow Pinwheel

Image courtesy NASA/Caltech/ESA/STScI/CXC

Four NASA space telescopes recently teamed up to create this new image of M101, aka the Pinwheel galaxy. The colorized composite will help astronomers map the different kinds of activity happening in this large spiral galaxy.

Red, for instance, represents infrared light spied by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which shows dust lanes that are heated up where new stars are forming. Visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope, shown in yellow, comes from stars that trace the paths of the dust lanes.

Blue regions show ultraviolet light captured by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, which reveals hot, young stars that formed about a million years ago. Finally, data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, colored purple, lets us see high-energy emissions from supernovae, superheated gas, and hot matter falling into black holes.

Published May 31, 2012

Golden Seas

Photograph courtesy NASA

The setting sun turns the Pacific Ocean into liquid gold, smeared by inky shadows from low-hanging clouds, as seen by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station earlier this month.

The picture was snapped as the orbiting laboratory passed over the Andes Mountains of central Chile.

Published May 31, 2012

Solar Wrinkles

Photograph by Tho Le Duc, My Shot

A "squashed tomato" sun rises over Vietnam's Quang Ngai beach in a picture recently submitted to National Geographic's My Shot.

The solar disk can appear distorted when it's near the horizon, because its light is being refracted—or bent—by more of Earth's atmosphere. Similarly, rising and setting suns often appear redder because the thicker atmospheric layers scatter more blue light, leaving mostly red wavelengths.

Published May 31, 2012

Snared Dragon

Photograph courtesy NASA

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule is grappled by the robotic arm on the International Space Station in a picture taken from the station.

Last week the cargo craft successfully became the first commercial vehicle to dock with the ISS. Dragon spent about a week attached to the orbiting lab before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean Thursday morning.

Published May 31, 2012

Sun Hoop

Photograph by Mike Heller, Your Shot

A rainbow ring loops around the sun in a picture taken from Vancouver, Canada, and recently submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot.

The solar halo is an optical effect created by ice crystals in high-altitude clouds, which refract sunlight and split it into its component colors.

Published May 31, 2012

More of Our Favorite Space Pictures >>

Image courtesy PHL/UPR Arecibo

Published May 31, 2012