A round-up of the best space pictures
from last month, including the remains of a supernova explosion, rippling
Martian sand dunes, the Eagle Nebula and an interesting view of Belgium
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| 'Blue Marble', a composite of several images from Nasa's Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP |
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| Nasa captured this dramatic image of a solar flare on 2 January. To view a video of the event click here. The show lasted about three hours, but the blast was not directed at Earth |
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| Solar flares on 23 January, however, enhanced the aurora borealis in the skies over the frozen Susitna River near Talkeetna, in Alaska |
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| This panoramic image taken from the International
Space Station shows lights from population centres in Belgium and the
Netherlands (centre bottom), the British Isles partially obscured by
solar array panels (left), the North Sea (centre left), and Scandinavia
(right) behind the space station's remote manipulator system |
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| An unpiloted Progress resupply vehicle approaches
the International Space Station on 27 January carrying 930kg of
propellant, 50kg of oxygen and air, 420kg of water and 1,260kg of spare
parts and research hardware |
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| The European Space Agency's new Vega rocket on its
launch pad at Kourou in French Guiana. Final preparations are in full
swing for the rocket's inaugural flight when it will carry nine satellites into orbit |
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| This image
shows the planet Mercury on the left and the asteroid Vesta on the
right. In March last year Messenger became the first spacecraft to orbit
Mercury, and in July, Dawn was the first to orbit a main-belt asteroid,
Vesta. Both objects' surfaces are marked by impact craters, but Vesta's
irregular shape is a consequence of its weak gravity. Mercury's mass is
about 1,300 times greater |
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| A supernova remnant 170,000 light years away in one of the Milky Way's galactic neighbours. This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the exploding star |
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| This galaxy cluster, nicknamed 'El Gordo' – 'The Fat One' in Spanish – was discovered 7 billion light years away by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes.
It is the most massive and hottest galaxy cluster known to astronomers,
and the latest data suggest it is the site of a collision between two
separate clusters. In this composite image, x-rays are represented in
blue; optical data from the Very Large Telescope is red, green and blue;
and infrared data from Spitzer in red and orange |
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| This artist's impression
shows how commonplace planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. A
six-year search that surveyed millions of stars concluded that planets
around stars are the rule rather than the exception |
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| This photograph of the 36-inch telescope at the
Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, taken by Eric Begbie, won the online vote
and was highly recommended in the STFC Photowalk competition |
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| The Herschel Space Observatory captured this image of the Eagle nebula,
with its intensely cold gas and dust. Each colour reveals a different
temperature of dust, from around 10 degrees above absolute zero (10
Kelvin or -263C) for the red, up to around 40K for the blue. 'The
Pillars of Creation', the hand-like shape in the centre, were made
famous by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 |
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| This vast swathe of the Milky Way is a mosaic of
images from Nasa's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise).
Cassiopeia and Cepheus feature in the 1,000-square degree expanse:
constellations visible in the northern sky. Wise took its pictures in
infrared light, making the bright stars visible from Earth fade into
obscurity among the backdrop of millions of other stars. Cool clouds of
dust that fill the space between the stars glow in infrared, telling
astronomers more about how stars are born and die |
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| The Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy,
in infrared light as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory and Nasa's
Spitzer Space Telescope. Giant ripples of dust span 10s or hundreds of
light years. Significant fields of star formation can be seen near the
centre. The brightest region, centre left, is called 30 Doradus, or the
Tarantula Nebula. Colder regions (red) show where star formation is at
its earliest stages or has shut off, while warm expanses (blue) are new
stars heating surrounding dust |
