Space Pictures This Week: Loner Galaxy, Mars Closeup, More

Mars Touchdown

Image courtesy MSSS/Caltech/NASA

NASA's Curiosity rover took this color image of gravel-colored ground on Mars just minutes after touching down on the red planet on August 8.

A sliver of sunlight passing through the structure of the rover—whose wheel is visible at top left—illuminates the surface. The largest rock fragment in the image is about two inches (five centimeters) long.

(Get the full story of Curiosity's mission in the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012.)

Published August 16, 2012

Spanish Gold

Photograph courtesy NASA

Valencia, Spain, glimmers like gold treasure in an August 4 picture taken from the International Space Station. With a population exceeding two million, Valencia is the country's third largest city.

(Related: "Twenty Stunning Shots of Earth from Space.")

Published August 16, 2012

Pipe Nebula

Image courtesy ESO

Taken at Chile's La Silla Paranal Observatory, a picture released August 15 shows the dark, dusty Pipe Nebula silhouetted against stars close to the center of the Milky Way.

(See nebulae pictures.)

Published August 16, 2012

Fiery Failure

Image courtesy NASA

NASA's Project Morpheus vehicle burns after a hardware failure prevented the prototype lander from maintaining stable flight on August 9 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers are looking into the cause of the failure, which resulted in no injuries.

Morpheus—designed to improve spacecraft propulsion, landing, and hazard detection—is also intended to carry more than a thousand pounds (450 kilograms) of cargo to the moon.

(See "Pictures: NASA's New Rocket—And Four 'Lost Launchers.'")

Published August 16, 2012

Lake Lights

Photograph by Tamas Ladanyi, TWAN

A Perseid meteor zips over a lake in Hungary on August 11.

Hitting Earth's atmosphere at almost a hundred thousand miles (160,000 kilometers) an hour, the meteoroids burn up, producing streaks of light—meteors, or shooting stars—each lasting just a fraction of a second.

(Related: "Perseid Pictures: Meteor Shower Dazzles Every August.")

Published August 16, 2012

Lonely Galaxy

Image courtesy ESA/NASA

Without neighbors, the "lonely" galaxy DDO 190 is relatively small and lacks clear structure, according to NASA.

In this recently released Hubble Space Telescope picture, older, reddish stars dot the edges of the so-called dwarf irregular galaxy. Younger, bluish stars crowd its interior.

(See galaxy pictures.)

Published August 16, 2012

Martian Future?

Illustration from Mars One/AFP/Getty Images

Designed by a Dutch start-up, the theoretical Mars One capsule lands on the red planet in an artist's conception.

Mars One's designers intend to beat out NASA by sending the first humans to Mars in 2023. Project planners hope to "establish the foundation of a permanent settlement from which we will prosper, learn, and grow," according to the Mars One website.

(See "First Color Mars-Rover Pictures Space Shots of Crashed Gear.")

Published August 16, 2012

Next: More Great Space Pictures

Image courtesy MSSS/Caltech/NASA

Published August 16, 2012