Space Pictures This Week: A Celestial Dumbbell and a Dying Star

A Beautiful End

Image courtesy N. Ruiz et al, IAA-CSIC/CXC/STScI/NASA

Resembling a face with a furry hood, the iconic Eskimo nebula is some 4,000 light-years from Earth. It shines bright in this composite image-released July 11-created from optical data taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The colorful "parka" or outer shell of gas and dust is expanding at speeds of 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) an hour, and is lit up by the radiation blasting out from the remains of a dying red giant at the center of the nebula.

The part of the gas cloud glowing at a million degrees near the center appears pink to Chandra's x-ray eye, while Hubble's vision highlights intricate streamers of gas in the outer shell in red, green, and blue.

Published July 19, 2013

Eye in the Sky

Photograph by Nikhil Devasar, Your Shot

Perched atop a desolate mountain in the western Himalaya at 14,800 feet (4,517 meters) above sea level, the Indian Astronomical Observatory is the world's highest telescope facility.

Located in the cloudless, high-altitude desert near the Chinese border in the village of Hanle, India (map), the Chandra telescope is touted as one of the most sophisticated in the Eastern Hemisphere.

In this long-exposure photograph of the mountain observatory—released July 13—bright stars create curved trails over the course of a few hours.

The sky appears to turn as the Earth rotates around its axis. The North Star (center), to which our planet's north axis appears to point, remains motionless. (Related: "North Star Closer to Earth Than Thought.")

Published July 19, 2013

Celestial Dumbbell

Image by Fred Herrmann, Terry Hancock, and Andre van der Hoeven, Your Shot

The Dumbbell nebula, a favorite target for generations of backyard telescopes, appears in this image released July 13 with a ghostly outer halo or shell.

Located 1,360 light-years away from Earth in the northern Vulpecula constellation, this colorful bubble of gas and dust is all that remains of a dying sunlike star.

The many shells of hot gas puffed away from the outer atmosphere of the star stretches across 4.5 light-years—wide enough to fill the space between our solar system and the nearest star.

Published July 19, 2013

Say Cheese!

Photograph courtesy NASA

American astronaut Chris Cassidy poses with his digital still camera in front of one of the International Space Station's solar panels during a spacewalk on July 16.

A little more than an hour into the outing, fellow spacewalker Luca Parmitano reported water accumulating in his helmet and ground controllers decided to end the extravehicular activity early.

Published July 19, 2013