Comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko Near Messier 107

This is a picture of comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko in the constellation Ophiuchus. The image was taken on March 21, 2014, by the narrow-angle camera of the Rosetta spacecraft's Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS). The comet is indicated by the small circle next to the bright globular star cluster M107. The image was taken from a distance of about 3 million miles (5 million kilometers).

Image credit: ESA © 2014 MPS for OSIRIS-Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Note: For more information, see PIA17796: Rosetta Images its Target, Rosetta Sets Sights on Destination Comet, Rosetta’s First Sighting of its Target in 2014 – Narrow Angle View, and Rosetta Sets Sights on Destination Comet.

Rings Around Asteroid 10199 Chariklo

Observations at many sites in South America, including ESO’s La Silla Observatory, have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings. This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the Solar System — after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — to have this feature. The origin of these rings remains a mystery, but they may be the result of a collision that created a disc of debris.

This artist’s impression shows how the rings might look from close to the surface of Chariklo.

Illustration credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)

Note: For more information, see First Ring System Around Asteroid.

Update: A new video shows how the occultation of a star by Asteroid 10199 Chariklo revealed the two rings that orbit the asteroid.

NGC 4395

The galaxy NGC 4395 is shown here in infrared light, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This dwarf galaxy is relatively small in comparison with our Milky Way galaxy, which is nearly 1,000 times more massive.

The galaxy is "bulgeless" because it lacks a large collection of stars at its center. Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have found more evidence that bulgeless galaxies, contrary to previous theories, do harbor supermassive black holes at their center. In this image, an actively feeding supermassive black hole resides in the galaxy's nucleus, as seen by the bright red source. The feeding supermassive black hole dominates the infrared light coming from the galaxy's center.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see The Search for Seeds of Black Holes.

Open Cluster Berkeley 87 and Star-Forming Region ON2

Massive stars are born in tumultuous clouds of gas and dust. They lead a brief but intense life, blowing powerful winds of particles and radiation that strike their surroundings, before their explosive demise as supernovas.

The interplay between massive stars and their environment is revealed in this image of the star-forming region ON2. It combines X-ray coverage from ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory with an infrared view from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

This stellar cradle is associated with the open cluster of stars named Berkeley 87, some 4000 light-years from Earth. The cluster is home to over 2000 stars, most of which are low-mass stars like our Sun or smaller, but some – a few dozen – are stellar monsters weighing 10–80 times more.

Two glowing clouds of gas and dust – the raw material from which stars form – dominate the center of the image and are shown in red. Scattered across the image are a multitude of protostars – seeds of future stellar generations; these are shown in green. The bright yellow star in the upper part of the image is BC Cygni, a massive star that has puffed up enormously and will eventually explode as a supernova.

Shown in blue is XMM-Newton’s X-ray view of ON2: it reveals individual sources – young, massive stars as well as protostars – and more diffuse regions of X-rays. Two ‘bubbles’ of X-rays can be seen in the upper and lower clouds, respectively, pink against the red background. These two bubbles conceal the cumulative emissions from many protostars, but also light radiated by very energetic particles – a signature of shockwaves triggered by massive stars and their winds.

The image combines observations performed in the X-ray energy range of 0.25–12 keV (blue) and at infrared wavelengths of 3.6 microns (green) and 8 microns (red). It spans about 15 arcminutes on each side; north is up and east is to the left.

This image was first published in the paper “Hard X-Ray Emission in the Star-Forming Region ON 2: Discovery with XMM-Newton” by Oskinova et al. in April 2010.

Image credit: L.M. Oskinova, R.A. Gruendl, Spitzer Space Telescope, JPL, NASA & ESA

Space Sunflower May Help Snap Pictures of Planets

A spacecraft that looks like a giant sunflower might one day be used to acquire images of Earth-like rocky planets around nearby stars. The prototype deployable structure, called a starshade, is being developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The hunt is on for planets that resemble Earth in size, composition and temperature. Rocky planets with just the right temperature for liquid water -- not too hot, not too cold -- could be possible abodes for life outside our solar system. NASA's Kepler mission has discovered hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets, some of which are a bit larger than Earth and lie in this comfortable "Goldilocks" zone.

Researchers generally think it's only a matter of time before we find perfect twins of Earth. The next step would be to image and characterize their spectra, or chemical signatures, which provide clear clues about whether those worlds could support life. The starshade is designed to help take those pictures of planets by blocking out the overwhelmingly bright light of their stars. Simply put, the starshade is analogous to holding your hand up to the sun to block it while taking a picture of somebody.

The proposed starshade could launch together with a telescope. Once in space, it would separate from the rocket and telescope, unfurl its petals, then move into position to block the light of stars.

Video credit: NASA/JPL

The Milky Way in Infrared

When you look up at the Milky Way on a clear, dark night, you'll see a band of bright stars arching overhead. This is the plane of our flat spiral galaxy, within which our solar system lies.

A new, zoomable panorama from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows us our galaxy's plane all the way around us in infrared light. The 360-degree mosaic comes primarily from the GLIMPSE360 project, which stands for Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire. It consists of more than 2 million snapshots taken in infrared light over 10 years, beginning in 2003 when Spitzer launched.

This infrared view reveals much more of the galaxy than can be seen in visible-light views. Whereas visible light is blocked by dust, infrared light from stars and other objects can travel through dust to reach Spitzer's detectors. For instance, when looking up at our night skies, we see stars that are an average of 1,000 light-years away; the rest are hidden. In Spitzer's mosaic, light from stars throughout the galaxy -- which stretches 100,000 light-years across -- shines through. This picture covers only about three percent of the sky, but includes more than half of the galaxy's stars and the majority of its star formation activity.

The red color shows dusty areas of star formation. Throughout the galaxy, tendrils, bubbles and sculpted dust structures are apparent. These are the results of massive stars blasting out winds and radiation. Stellar clusters deeply embedded in gas and dust, green jets and other features related to the formation of young stars can also be seen for the first time. Looking toward the galactic center, the blue haze is made up of starlight -- the region is too far away for us to pick out individual stars, but they contribute to the glow. Dark filaments that show up in stark contrast to the bright background are areas of thick, cold dust that not even infrared light can penetrate. If you look closely, it's even possible to spot distant galaxies that lie far beyond the Milky Way.

Scientists are using these images to get to know our galaxy better. They've come up with better maps of its central bar of stars and spiral structure, discovered new remote sites of star formation and even come across new mysteries; for example, the dust grains indicate a higher abundance of carbon in the galaxy than expected. The GLIMPSE360 map will guide astronomers for generations, helping them to further chart the unexplored territories of our own Milky Way.

The image combines data from multiple surveys in addition to GLIMPSE360: GLIMPSE, GLIMPSEII, GLIMPSE3D, Vela-Carina, Deep GLIMPSE, CYGX, GALCEN and SMOG. Twelve-micron data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was substituted for missing 8-micron data in outer galaxy regions mapped during Spitzer's post-cryogen mission.

Zoomable, full-resolution and poster versions of the image are online at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Wisconsin

Note: For more information, see NASA's Spitzer Telescope Brings 360-Degree View of Galaxy to Our Fingertips.

Supernova Remnant DEM L241

DEM L241: A supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light years from Earth.

This composite image contains data from Chandra (purple) that provides evidence for the survival of a companion star from the blast of a supernova explosion. Chandra’s X-rays reveal a point-like source in the supernova remnant at the location of a massive star. The data suggest that mass is being pulled away from the massive star towards a neutron star or a black hole companion. If confirmed, this would be only the third binary system containing both a massive star and a neutron star or black hole ever found in the aftermath of a supernova. This supernova remnant is found embedded in clouds of ionized hydrogen, which are shown in optical light (yellow and cyan) from the MCELS survey, along with additional optical data from the DSS (white).

Scale: Image is 24 arcmin across (1100 light years).

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward et al; Optical: NOAO/CTIO/MCELS, DSS

Lunar North Pole Map

Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have created the largest high resolution mosaic of our moon's north polar region. The six-and-a-half feet (two-meters)-per-pixel images cover an area equal to more than one-quarter of the United States.

The images making up the mosaic were taken by the two LRO Narrow Angle Cameras, which are part of the instrument suite known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). The cameras can record a tremendous dynamic range of lit and shadowed areas.

Web viewers can zoom in and out, and pan around an area. Constructed from 10,581 pictures, the mosaic provides enough detail to see textures and subtle shading of the lunar terrain. Consistent lighting throughout the images makes it easy to compare different regions.

To view the image with zoom and pan capability, visit http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/gigapan.

Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Cosmic Dust Survey by Herschel and SDSS

Collage of galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey at infrared/submillimeter wavelengths by Herschel (left) and at visible wavelengths from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, right). The Herschel image is colored with blue representing cold dust and red representing warm dust; the SDSS image shows young stars in blue and old stars in red. Together, the observations plot young, dust-rich spiral/irregular galaxies in the top left, with giant dust-poor elliptical galaxies in the bottom right.

Image credit: ESA/Herschel/HRS-SAG2 and HeViCS Key Programmes/Sloan Digital Sky Survey/ L. Cortese (Swinburne University)

Note: For more information, see Herschel Completes Largest Survey of Cosmic Dust in Local Universe and Herschel Survey in Infrared.

NGC 2174, the Monkey Head Nebula

Each year the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope releases a brand new image to celebrate its birthday. This year, the subject of its 24th celebratory snap is part of the Monkey Head Nebula, last viewed by Hubble in 2001, creating a stunning image released in 2011.

Otherwise known as NGC 2174, this cloud of gas and dust lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Nebulas like this one are popular targets for Hubble – their colorful plumes of gas and fiery bright stars create ethereally beautiful pictures, such as the telescope’s 22nd and 23rd anniversary images of the Tarantula and Horsehead nebulas.

This region is filled with young stars embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust. Dark dust clouds billow outwards, framed against a background of bright blue gas. These striking hues were formed by combining several Hubble images taken through different colored filters, revealing a broad range of colors not normally visible to our eyes.

These vivid clouds are actually a violent stellar nursery packed with the ingredients needed for building stars. The recipe for cooking up new stars is quite inefficient, and most of the ingredients are wasted as the cloud of gas and dust disperses. This process is accelerated by the presence of fiercely hot young stars, which triggers high-speed winds that help to blow the gas outwards.

This image marks 24 years of Hubble since April 1990, a milestone that will be celebrated at a conference held in Rome, Italy, this week. The “Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV” conference will highlight and celebrate the scientific breakthroughs of Hubble over the last two decades, and look to the future at the topics and key questions that will shape the field of astrophysics in the next decade.

Photo credit: NASA/ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Note: For more information, see Hubble Revisits the Monkey Head Nebula for 24th Birthday Snap.

Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171

This artist’s impression shows the yellow hypergiant star HR 5171. This is a very rare type of star with only a dozen known in our galaxy. Its size is over 1300 times that of our Sun — one of the largest ten stars found so far. Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer have shown that it is actually a double star, with the companion in contact with the main star.

Illustration credit: ESO

Note: For more information, see VLT Spots Largest Yellow Hypergiant Star.

Venus Glory

False color composite of a ‘glory’ seen on Venus on 24 July 2011. The image is composed of three images at ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths from the Venus Monitoring Camera. The images were taken 10 seconds apart and, due to the motion of the spacecraft, do not overlap perfectly. The glory is 1200 km across, as seen from the spacecraft, 6000 km away.

Image credit: (top) ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA; (bottom) C. Wilson/P. Laven

Note: For more information, see Venus Glory.

Frontier Fields

More than 400 years ago, Galileo turned a primitive spyglass toward the sky, and in just a few nights learned more about the unseen heavens than all of the scientists and philosophers before him, combined.

Since then astronomers have been guided by a simple imperative: Make Bigger Telescopes. As the 21st century unfolds, the power of optics has grown a million-fold. Telescopes cap the highest mountains, sprawl across deserts, fill valleys and even fly through space. These modern giants provide crystal-clear views of stars and galaxies billions of light years farther away than anything Galileo ever saw, each breakthrough in size bringing a new and deeper understanding of the cosmos.

It makes you wonder, how big can a telescope get?

Would you believe, bigger than an entire galaxy? At the January 2014 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, researchers revealed a patch of sky seen through a lens more than 500,000 light years wide.

The “lens” is actually a massive cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2744. As predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the mass of the cluster warps the fabric of space around it. Starlight passing by is bent and magnified, much like an ordinary lens except on a vastly larger scale.

Lately, the Hubble Space Telescope, along with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, has been looking through this gravitational lens as part of a program called “Frontier Fields.”

“Frontier Fields is an experiment to explore the first billion years of the Universe’s history,” says Matt Mountain from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. The question is, “Can we use Hubble’s exquisite image quality and Einstein’s theory of general relativity to search for the first galaxies?”

The answer seems to be “yes.” At the AAS meeting, an international team led by astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and La Laguna University discussed Hubble and Spitzer observations of the Abell 2744 cluster. Among the results was the discovery of one of the most distant galaxies ever seen—a star system 30 times smaller yet 10 times more active than our own Milky Way. Bursting with newborn stars, the firebrand is giving astronomers a rare glimpse of a galaxy born not long after the Big Bang itself.

Overall, the Hubble exposure of Abell 2744 revealed almost 3,000 distant galaxies magnified as much as 10 to 20 times larger than they would normally appear. Without the boost of gravitational lensing, almost all of those background galaxies would be invisible.

Abell 2744 is just the beginning. Frontier Fields is targeting six galaxy clusters as gravitational lenses. Together, they form an array of mighty telescopes capable of probing the heavens as never before.

Video credit: NASA

Planetary Formation Through Magnetic Fields

Magnetic loops carry gas and dust above disks of planet-forming material circling stars, as shown in this artist's conception. These loops give off extra heat, which NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detects as infrared light. The colors in this illustration show what an alien observer with eyes sensitive to both visible light and infrared wavelengths might see.

Illustration credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see Mystery of Planet-forming Disks Explained by Magnetism.

WISE J104915.57-531906

The third closest star system to the sun, called WISE J104915.57-531906, is at the center of the larger image, which was taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). It appeared to be a single object, but a sharper image (inset) from Gemini Observatory in Chile, revealed that it was binary star system, consisting of a pair of brown dwarfs. This is the closest star system to be discovered in nearly a century. The discovery was announced in March, 2013.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF

Note: For more information, see PIA17990: What WISE Can and Cannot See, PIA17991: A New Solar Neighbor, and NASA's WISE Survey Finds Thousands of New Stars, But No 'Planet X'.

Asteroid P/2013 R3 Disintegrates

This series of images shows the asteroid P/2013 R3 breaking apart, as viewed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 2013. This is the first time that such a body has been seen to undergo this kind of break-up.

The Hubble observations showed that there are ten distinct objects, each with comet-like dust tails, embedded within the asteroid's dusty envelope. The four largest rocky fragments are up to 200 meters in radius, about twice the length of a football pitch.

The date increases from left to right, with frames from 29 October 2013, 15 November 2013, 13 December 2013, and 14 January 2014 respectively, showing how the clumps of debris material move around. The 14 January 2014 frame was not included in the science paper and is additional data.

Image credit: (top) NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA); (bottom) NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA)

Note: For more information, see Hubble Witnesses an Asteroid Mysteriously Disintegrating and Hubble Witnesses Asteroid's Mysterious Disintegration.

Carbon Monoxide Gas Around Beta Pictoris

This artist's concept illustrates the preferred model for explaining ALMA observations of Beta Pictoris. The new observations from ALMA now show that the disc around the star is permeated by carbon monoxide gas. The presence of carbon monoxide could indicate that the Beta Pictoris planetary system may eventually become a good habitat for life. At the outer fringes of the system, the gravitational influence of a hypothetical giant planet (bottom left) captures comets into a dense, massive swarm (right) where frequent collisions occur.

Illustration credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/F. Reddy

Note: For more information, see Crashing Comets Explain Surprise Gas Clump Around Young Star.

Quasar RX J1131-1231

RX J1131-1231: A quasar located about 6 billion light years from Earth.

Multiple images of a distant quasar known as RX J1131-1231 are visible in this combined view from Chandra (pink) and Hubble (red, green, and blue). The Chandra data, along with data from ESA’s XMM-Newton, were used to directly measure the spin of the supermassive black hole powering this quasar. Black holes are defined by just two simple characteristics: mass and spin. At a distance of 6 billion light years, this is the most distant black hole where such a measurement has been made, allowing for an important advance in understanding how black holes grow over time.

Scale: Image is 1.2 arcmin across (about 1.6 million light years).

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/R.C.Reis et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

Note: For more information, see RX J1131-1231: Chandra & XMM-Newton Provide Direct Measurement of Distant Black Hole's Spin.

Messier 42 - The Orion Nebula

This color composite of the Orion Nebula was created from data from the new MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. For each part of this spectacular star formation region this new instrument splits the light up into its component colors — revealing in detail the chemical and physical properties of each point. This picture is based on a mosaic of many MUSE datasets that were obtained soon after the instrument achieved first light in early 2014.

To make this picture selected regions of the spectrum were extracted to form a single color image. Although this is impressive it is only a tiny fraction of the information in the full MUSE three-dimensional dataset.

Image credit: ESO/MUSE consortium/R. Bacon

Note: For more information, see First Light for MUSE.

ESO 137-001

This new Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 137-001, framed against a bright background as it moves through the heart of galaxy cluster Abell 3627.

This image not only captures the galaxy and its backdrop in stunning detail, but also something more dramatic – intense blue streaks streaming outwards from the galaxy, seen shining brightly in ultraviolet light.

These streaks are in fact hot, wispy streams of gas that are being torn away from the galaxy by its surroundings as it moves through space. This violent galactic disrobing is due to a process known as ram pressure stripping – a drag force felt by an object moving through a fluid.

Image credit: NASA, ESA. Acknowledgements: Ming Sun (UAH), and Serge Meunier

Note: For more information, see Spiral Galaxy Spills Blood and Guts, and ESO 137-001: Life Is Too Fast, Too Furious for This Runaway Galaxy. The "intense blue streaks" mentioned in the above article are much more apparent in the composite image produced by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory; click on the second link to see that image.

NGC 7538

The billowing clouds portrayed in this image from ESA’s Herschel observatory are part of NGC 7538, a stellar nursery for massive stars. Located around 9000 light-years away, this is one of the few regions of massive-star formation that are relatively close to us, allowing astronomers to investigate this process in great detail.

Star factories like NGC 7538 consist mainly of hydrogen gas, but they also contain small amounts of cosmic dust. It was through this minor – but crucial – component that Herschel could image these star-forming regions, because dust shines brightly at the far-infrared wavelengths that were probed by the observatory.

With a total mass of almost 400,000 Suns, NGC 7538 is an active factory where stars come to life – especially huge ones that are over eight times more massive than the Sun. Hundreds of seeds of future stellar generations nestle in the mixture of surrounding gas and dust scattered across the image. Once they reach a critical mass, they will ignite as stars. Thirteen of these proto-stars have masses greater than 40 Suns, and are also extremely cold, less than –250ºC.

One group of stellar seeds seem to trace a ring-like structure, visible in the left part of the image. The ring may be the edge of a bubble carved by previous stellar explosions – as stars reach the end of their lives and explode as dramatic supernovas – but astronomers are still investigating the origin of this peculiar arrangement.

The image is a composite of the wavelengths of 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red) and spans about 50 x 50 arc minutes. North is up and east is to the left. It was first published in the paper Herschel Reveals Massive Cold Clumps in NGC 7538 by Fallscheer et al. 2013.

Image credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE. Acknowledgements: Cassie Fallscheer (University of Victoria), Mike Reid (University of Toronto) and the Herschel HOBYS team

Comet NEOWISE C2014 C3

Comet NEOWISE was first observed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft on Valentine's Day, 2014. This heat-sensitive infrared image was made by combining six exposures taken by the NEOWISE mission of the newly discovered comet. The image shows 1/20th of a degree of sky on a side, or about 155,000 miles (250,000 kilometers) at the comet's distance. The NEOWISE mission searches for asteroids and comets using two infrared wavelength channels. The shorter wavelength, at 3.4 microns [or millionths of a meter], is mapped to cyan and the longer wavelength, at 4.6 microns [or millionths of a meter], is shown in red. The tail of the comet NEOWISE extends about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) to the right in the image.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see NEOWISE Spies Its First Comet.

Spitzer's View of SN 2014J in Messier 82

The closest supernova of its kind to be observed in the last few decades has sparked a global observing campaign involving legions of instruments on the ground and in space, including NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

This image shows Spitzer's view of the supernova's host galaxy, M82 or the "Cigar galaxy," on three separate dates: May 9, 2005; February 7, 2014; and February 12, 2014. The observations from February 7 reveal the presence of a bright spot -- the supernova -- not present in the prior observations. By February 12, the supernova has started to dim somewhat from its peak brightness in the first week of February. The supernova, dubbed SN 2014J, was first spotted by human observers on January 21, 2014.

SN 2014J is glowing very brightly in the infrared light that Spitzer sees. The telescope was able to observe the supernova before and after it reached its peak brightness. Such early observations with an infrared telescope have only been obtained for a few Type Ia supernovas in the past.

Dust in the M82 galaxy partially obscures observations in optical and high-energy forms of light. The infrared light that Spitzer sees in, however, can pass through this dust, allowing astronomers to peer directly into the heart of the aftermath of the stellar explosion.

Researchers are currently using the data to learn more about how these explosions occur.

In the image, light from Spitzer's infrared channels are colored blue at 3.6 microns and green at 4.5 microns.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Carnegie Institution for Science

Note: For more information, see Spitzer Stares into the Heart of New Supernova in M82.