Space Pictures This Week: Retro Mars, Psychedelic Sun, More

Green Day

Photograph courtesy NASA

The International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm holds steady above a green aurora australis—the southern lights—in an image taken July 15 from the space station.

The 56-foot-long (17-meter-long) arm, active since 2001, is essential to the station's construction and operations, according to the Canadian Space Agency.

(See "SpaceX's Dragon Docks With Space Station—A First.")

Published July 20, 2012

Dark Side of the Moon

Photograph by Tunç Tezel, TWAN

As seen from Turkey, the crescent moon nearly eclipses Jupiter—with Venus soon to follow—during a July 15 conjunction, when celestial objects appear to get close to each other in the sky.

Conjunctions exist only in our heads. Celestial bodies appear to fall in line due to our location in the solar system—they're not actually any closer, or farther, from each other than at any other time.

(Read more about Sunday's "celestial triangle.")

Published July 20, 2012

Infrared

Image coutesy Robert Simmon, Aster/NASA/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS

The chipped-paint quality of this photograph—snapped by NASA's Terra satellite on July 18—was achieved by combining 14 spectral light bands, from infrared to red to green.

The result is a false-color image of Canada's Kitikmeot region and scars it accumulated during the last ice age—deep glacial gouges now filled with water, forming lakes and streams.

The vast red swaths indicate vegetated land, while the cooler shades—blue, green, tan, and black—show water of varying sediment concentrations.

(See "Earth Day Pictures: Twenty Stunning Shots of Earth From Space.")

Published July 20, 2012

Green Lantern

Photograph courtesy A. Kumar and E. Bondoux, ESA/IPEV/ENEAA

On July 18 auroras illuminate the French-Italian Concordia station in Antarctica—one of the most remote outposts on Earth.

Though the station looks worlds away, scientists Alexander Kumar and Erick Bondoux took the photograph from only about 0.62 mile (1 kilometer) away.

(What's life like in Antarctica? Find out with our quiz.)

Published July 20, 2012

Martian Winter

Image courtesy U. Arizona/NASA

Crater walls in Mars's Southern Hemisphere take on a claylike texture due to carbon dioxide frost, as seen in a July 18 picture captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera.

Gullies such as the one pictured are common around Mars's middle latitudes. Frost (tinted blue above) tends to form in the alcoves within the depressions.

(See "Seven Great Mars Pictures From Record-Breaking Probe.")

Published July 20, 2012

Stairway to Heaven

Photograph by Tunç Tezel, TWAN

Seeming to trace a celestial highway, Mars progresses along a retrograde loop in a composite picture made of more than 40 shots taken between October 2011, and July 2012. A retrograde loop occurs when a planet's orbit reverses direction.

Photographer Tunç Tezel created the image from photos he took in Turkey. With his brother's help, Tezel has photographed each of Mars's retrograde paths since 1994.

(See "Mars Rover Landing's 'Seven Minutes of Terror' Just Got Scarier.")

Published July 20, 2012

More Space Pictures

Image courtesy ESA

Published July 20, 2012