Images
NASA / ESA / U. of Va. / STScI / ANU |
Click for video: Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3 captures a detailed view of
starbirth in the spiral galaxy M83. Click on the image to watch a zoom-in video.
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The Hubble Space Telescope's new wide-field camera has sent down a picture showing how the "assembly line" of starbirth works in a nearby spiral galaxy.
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NASA / ESA / IAA |
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The Hubble Space Telescope's closeup view of the "Jewel Box" star cluster NGC
4755 reveals sapphire blue supergiant stars, one ruby-red supergiant and other
stellar gems. Click on the picture for larger views from the European Hubble team.
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An antique "Jewel Box" in the night sky takes on a new shine in imagery from three of the best telescopes in the world and in space.
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Alan Boyle / msnbc.com |
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Steve Landeene, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority's executive director, points
toward Spaceport America's vertical launch site from a simulated lunar lander pad.
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Is Spaceport America ready to become New Mexico's newest tourist attraction? Mmm, not quite yet. But there's lots of wide open space, lots of potential and lots of hope that the spaceport will spark a domino effect of development and tourist activity.
If the plans succeed, Spaceport America and its surroundings could become a multibillion-dollar center for tourism as well as spaceflight - something akin to Florida's Space Coast with a Wild West twist. If the plans totally flop, the locale could wind up as a $198 million ghost town.
It's up to Steve Landeene, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority's executive director, to make sure those plans don't flop. "You've got to have a lot of vision here," he said.
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A. Evans / Stony Brook U. / NASA / ESA |
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mess known as NGC 2623. Click on the image to watch a "Hubblecast" video.
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Long ago, a galaxy far away smashed into another galaxy - creating a beautiful, terrible knot of cosmic chaos. The view of that galactic collision, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, serves as a preview of what might well happen when the Andromeda Galaxy slams into our Milky Way galaxy billions of years from now.
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Science / AAAS |
Click for video: The left view is a computer model of Pallas' surface, based on
the Hubble imagery at right. The circle indicates a large crater that is likely deeper
than shown in the model. Click on the image to watch a 3-D animation.
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Images from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the asteroid Pallas should be grouped along with two other big space rocks as protoplanets - "planetary embryos" that were big enough to stay pretty much as they were during the formation of the solar system, but too small to progress to the next stage of development.
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NASA |
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Astronaut Drew Feustel looms large as he moves a corrective-optics package from
the Hubble Space Telescope to a stowage position during May's final servicing
mission. This view was captured by the Imax 3-D camera in Atlantis' cargo bay.
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"Hubble 3D," due to premiere next March in super-screen Imax theaters, is shaping up as a fitting sendoff for the world's best-known telescope as well as the most complicated flying machine ever built.
Atlantis' trip to the Hubble Space Telescope in May may have marked not only the last time that astronauts put their hands on the crown jewels of NASA's astronomical assets, but also the last opportunity for filming a Hollywood-style production aboard a space shuttle.
"It made me sentimental," admitted Toni Myers, the film's producer, director and editor.
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Daryl Pederson |
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Daryl Pederson says he captured this shot of an "albino rainbow" while he was out
on his sailboat, making his way through the fog in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
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Now that fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, we can look forward to more of those misty, foggy, even icy mornings and evenings. And that's prime time for atmospheric curiosities such as sundogs and halos, sun pillars, moon rings and fogbows.
Fogbows, otherwise known as seadogs or "albino rainbows," are particularly easy to see at this time of year, as evidenced by the selection offered up at SpaceWeather.com.
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NASA / JPL / SSI |
Click for slideshow: Saturn's rings have darkened almost to invisibility in this
portrait captured by the Cassini orbiter on Aug. 12, just after equinox. This view
highlights the start of spring for Saturn's northern hemisphere. Click on the image
to see a slideshow featuring pictures from the ringed planet and its moons.
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The Cassini orbiter has sent back a spectacular set of pictures taken during Saturn’s equinox, including a moody portrait of the giant planet's rings at their darkest. Taken together, the pictures reveal that Saturn’s rings are bumpier, more active and more complex than previously thought.
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NASA / ASU |
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This image from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Apollo 12 landing
site (with the Intrepid descent stage) as well as the Surveyor 3 lander, the ALSEP
experiment package and tracks leading to other surrounding points of interest.
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Broader views of the universe are among the richest payoffs to result from space exploration, as demonstrated by the latest installment of "Month in Space Pictures." But those views becomes even richer when you see them from a completely different perspective. Some of the latest gems from space do just that, energizing scientific sleuths and confounding conspiracy theorists in the process.
Here's a quick sampling of completely different perspectives to peruse during the long Labor Day weekend:
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IBM Research - Zurich |
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Click for video: This graphic shows how scientists
used a carbon monoxide molecule on the end of a
metal tip to map a pentacene molecule. Click on the
image to watch a video from NBC's "Nightly News."
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Scientists have traced the structure of a complete molecule in all its glory, using the sharpest pen ever devised: an atomic force microscope tipped with a single molecule of carbon monoxide.
The experiment, detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science, could help open up a new frontier for molecular-scale circuitry and construction.
Researchers have been imaging molecules and their constituent atoms in crystals for decades, but the trick is to get a fine-resolution fix on the structure and behavior of an entire, self-contained molecule as it sits on a surface.
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