Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

Starry Night

Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN

The Milky Way glitters over Yosemite, California, in a picture taken December 14 and submitted to the astronomy-education project The World at Night (TWAN).

Our galaxy is far larger, brighter, and more massive than most other galaxies. From end to end, the Milky Way's starry disk, observable with the naked eye and through optical telescopes, spans 120,000 light-years.

(See Milky Way pictures inNational Geographic magazine.)

Published December 26, 2012

Celestial Ornament

Image courtesy G. Bacon, STScI/ESA/NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope has spied a nearby planetary nebula that resembles a holiday ornament wrapped in a ribbon, as seen in a picture released December 18.

Planetary nebulae such as NGC 5189 represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-size star like our sun.

(See more nebula pictures.)

Published December 26, 2012

It's a Bird, It's a Plane

Photograph by Shamil Zhumatov, Reuters

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carries U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station on December 19.

While floating some 240 miles (390 kilometers) above Earth's surface, the space station has hosted a rotating international crew since November 2000.

(See our space-exploration timeline.)

Published December 26, 2012

Martian Hazard

Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

Still not home for the holidays, NASA's Mars rover Opportunity keeps plugging away on the red planet's surface.

Here, the rover's hazard camera scans a target called Onaping at the base of Copper Cliff in the Endeavor crater. At least Opportunity calls home.

(See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")

Published December 26, 2012

Jewel Box

Photograph by Rolf Olsen, Your Shot

A star cluster named Jewel Box sparkles in a picture submitted to the Your Shot photo community on December 18.

Visible as a faint smudge with the naked eye under dark skies, the Jewel Box is located 6,440 light-years away towards the constellation Crux, or the Southern Cross. The bright orange star in the centre of the cluster is known as Kappa Crucis.

(See another picture of Jewel Box.)

Published December 26, 2012

Supersonic Star

Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, released on December 18.

Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads only visible in infrared.

Published December 26, 2012

See More of Our Favorite Space Pictures

Image courtesy Jesse Allen, EO-1/USGS/NASA

Published December 26, 2012