Eye candy from space: The most beautiful panoramas and photos of the universe around us

Spacewalkin’ in a winter wonderland

Credit: NASA.

Located within the Milky Way, about 5,500 light years from Earth, frosty-looking NGC 6357 is actually a “cluster of clusters” containing at least three clusters of young stars as well as the rest of the older, dimmer population of local stars. X-ray exposures from Chandra and ROSAT reveal hundreds of point sources, which are the young stars in NGC 6357, as well as diffuse X-ray emission from hot gas, supernovae, and even cavities like bubbles that have been blown by the radiation and material blowing away from the surfaces of massive stars. This composite image contains X-ray data from Chandra and ROSAT in purple, infrared data from Spitzer in orange, and visible-spectrum data from the UKIT’s SuperCosmos Sky Survey in blue.

Pismis 24-1

Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble).

This genuinely stunning and somehow very 80s tableau from the emission nebula NGC 6357, in Scorpius, depicts two different big names from the interstellar who’s who list. Pismis-1, the bright star in the cluster above, was once believed to be 200-300 solar masses, which would have been crazy huge. It’s been since revised down to “just” a hundred solar masses, which still means we can expect its life cycle to include a supernova — possibly a hypernova — and then a black hole. Below, there’s a bright young star blowing a stellar bubble inside the nebula. Its ultraviolet glow is part of what made it so hard for us to measure the mass of Pismis-1 and its fellows. Is it just me, or does it really look like this is painted on black velvet?


The spice must flow

Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016), processed by ESA

It was not immediately clear to me that this was not from another planet. I thought it was from somewhere on the slopes of Mars, where the CO2 ice sublimates and makes water-like traces in the sand as it scoots down the dunes — but it is in fact from the Anti-Atlas mountain range bordering the Sahara in western Algeria. While it wasn’t an image of an exoplanet per se, we’re an exoplanet according to everywhere else in the Universe and this was taken from space by the Copernicus satellite, so here are some geological fractals for your viewing pleasure. The neat circular crater in the center is from an asteroid impact some 70 million years ago, which took place before the K-T boundary and while the dinosaurs were still quite alive

Mystic Mountain

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI).

Splashy and sexy, the Mystic Mountain is actually one region of intense turbulence and high-energy stellar activity within the larger Carina Nebula. Pairs of opposing jets at the ends of these collapsing columns of gas are flung from accretion jets: hallmarks of stars being born. All that activity is eating the columns away from within, while it’s being burned away by other stars in its neighborhood. The denser, more opaque regions here have been resistant to the erosion. In this composite image, different colors correspond to the glow of different elements: oxygen in blue, hydrogen and nitrogen in green, and sulfur in red.
The Pinwheel Galaxy

Credit: European Space Agency & NASA

Messier 101 is found within Ursa Major, and it’s riddled with fun stuff. Supergiant star-forming regions litter the arms of this face-on spiral galaxy, of roughly equivalent size to the Milky Way but 23 million light years away. This composite image integrates data from the visible and infrared, and also used photographs from the ground-based Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).
Orion, the Hunter

The Horsehead Nebula, imaged in the visible spectrum, with an opaque cloud of dust silhouetted against a luminous cloud of gas. The bright but unrelated star in the lower left foreground is Zeta Orionis, the easternmost star in Orion's belt. Credit: T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

Orion, the Hunter with his belt and sword, is a familiar presence in the night sky almost everywhere on the planet. It’s composed of very bright, faraway stars and nebulae, which means that long after apparent motion has distorted most of our other constellations beyond recognition, Orion will still shine as a beacon to people around the world. But not everywhere gets to see views like these. Observatories around the world worked together to make these composite images of the violently beautiful star nurseries in and near Orion, with data from many different parts of the EM spectrum. Looking at the sky in different spectra reveals very different portraits of the visible universe, including the deepest view of the Orion Nebula ever taken.

Hubble's sharpest-ever view of the Orion Nebula, composited from hundreds of images taken throughout the visible and infrared. This nebula covers the apparent angular size of the full moon. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

The reflection nebula Messier 78, in Orion. This nebula is illuminated by reflected light from two nearby stars, about 1400 light years from Earth.. Credit: ESO/Igor Chekalin

The Orion Nebula, imaged with multiple infrared exposures using the VLT in Chile. The full size image is >16000x12000px, more than 1GB, and tends to saturate your RAM, although it is glorious to behold (and pan and zoom through!). Credit: ESO/H. Drass et al.

The Horsehead Nebula, imaged in the visible spectrum, with an opaque cloud of dust silhouetted against a luminous cloud of gas. The bright but unrelated star in the lower left foreground is Zeta Orionis, the easternmost star in Orion's belt. Credit: T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

The Orion Nebula (Messier 42), captured and composited in ten-minute near-infrared exposures.
 The image covers a region of sky about one degree by 1.5 degrees. Credit: ESO

Stellar nursery in Centaurus

Credit: ESO

“Nursery” might be in the name, but these places are anything but peaceful or serene. Nebulae shine so brightly because their component matter has been so thoroughly irradiated that it’s excited to a higher energy level and gives off photons as it calms back down. Bombarded by radiation in the UV, X-ray and gamma bands, star nurseries are even hostile to themselves. This star nursery lies at the center of a nebula in Centaurus that’s wracked with explosions and radiation so intense that they’re actually eroding away the dark, backlit clouds of dust you can see here silhouetted against the glow. In the ESO’s own words, the clouds — called Thackeray globules — are sizzling away in the onslaught like “lumps of butter dropped onto a hot frying pan.” They’ll probably be destroyed by their environment long before they can collapse to form new stars.


The Eagle Nebula

Credit: ESO

The Eagle Nebula spreads its wings here in the visible spectrum. Also visible near the heart of the nebula are the Pillars of Creation, themselves an iconic and much-photographed place in space.

The Medusa Nebula

Credit: ESO

The Medusa Cascade might be a figment of the Doctor Who universe, but we’ve a gorgeous Medusa of our own in the real world — the Medusa Nebula. As the Sun-like star at the core of this nebula died, it exploded and left behind these wisps and filaments of gas and dust. Stars like this one end their lives as white dwarf stars. At the end of its life span, our sun will become an object like this.

Bonus: Paranal is charging their laser

Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky

Full disclosure: this one is more like eye candy of the tech that makes the other eye candy. This laser on the Very Large Telescope excites atmospheric sodium, thought to be left over from ancient meteorites. (You might recognize in the laser beam the flat yellow color of a sodium street light.) It’s creating an “artificial star” at an altitude of 90 km, whose interference characteristics help cancel out interference from water vapor and atmospheric detritus. The whole process actually reduces optical noise and gives the telescope a view almost as clear as if there were no atmosphere at all. 15,000 feet up in the Atacama Desert, where there’s barely a visible atmosphere to begin with, the ESO radio telescopes can take advantage of some of the clearest skies on Earth.

'Roundest known space object' identified

Astronomers claim to have discovered the roundest object ever measured in nature.

Artwork: Kepler 11145123 (L) compared to the Sun

Kepler 11145123 is a distant, slowly rotating star that's more than twice the size of the Sun.

Researchers were able to show that the difference between its radius as measured to the equator and the radius measured to the poles was just 3km.

"This makes Kepler 11145123 the roundest natural object ever measured," said lead author Prof Laurent Gizon.

He added that it was "even more round than the Sun".

Prof Gizon, from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), and his colleagues used a technique called asteroseismology - the study of how stars pulsate, or oscillate.

Nasa's Kepler space telescope observed the star's oscillations continuously for more than four years.

The periodic expansions and contractions of Kepler 11145123 can be gleaned from fluctuations in its brightness. And from these data, astronomers were able to extract information about its shape.

Using the method, Prof Gizon and his colleagues discovered that the star rotated faster at the surface than in the core, contributing to an unexpected rounding of its form.

The difference of 3km, between the polar and equatorial radii, is tiny compared to the star's mean radius of 1.5 million km.

The authors say that this distortion is probably caused by factors other than rotation alone. They suggest that a weak magnetic field surrounds the star, making the star appear even more rounded.

The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

Space Scientists Launch Crowdfunding Campaign To Spot A 'Blue Dot' In Space

Space scientists and research organisations are on a mission to spot a blue dot in our nearest star system, which will indicate there might be life on other Earth-like planets.

Representational image/Reuters

Through “Project Blue: A Space Telescope to Photograph Another Earth” scientists and experts from University of Massachusetts Lowell and SETI Institute, among others, are appealing to the public to fund their search to find life in neighbouring star system Alpha Centauri A and B. With funds raised, they will build a telescope to observe planets.

Their goal is actually really simple (well in theory at least because a task like this can take years) to capture an image visible to the naked eye of orbiting planets. Spotting a “pale blue dot” could indicate the existence of oceans or even an atmosphere, which means the possibility of life.

The project plans to launch in 2020, only four years away so “we started this campaign,” they wrote on Kickstarter, “with the belief that together, people all over the world could push the boundaries of discovery in space, and possibly achieve one of the greatest milestones of human exploration”.

New Discovery Holds the Key to Possible Alien Life on Mars

Space News: New Discovery Holds the Key to Possible Alien Life on Mars

Alien life in Mars might have been possible in a recently discovered depression.
(Photo : NASA/Getty Images)

Scientists have recently discovered a strange depression on Mars that might finally answer the age-old question if there are extreterrestrial life or aliens on Mars.


Since ancient times, humanity has always been interested in what lies beyond the threshold of the planet's atmosphere. There have been troves of theories, scientific initiatives and researches dedicated to uncovering the truth surrounding the existence of alien life.

Mere days ago, RDMag published a report detailing the discovery of a peculiar depression on the surface of the red planet. The depression, which is located near the rim of the Hellas basin, seems to have all the requirements that could foster microbial life. According to Joseph Levy, research associate from the University of Texas and lead author of the study, the location is warm and chemical-rich enough to have been able to produce primitive forms of life.

"We were drawn to this site because it looked like it could host some of the key ingredients for habitability - water, heat and nutrients," explained Levy in a statement as reported by The Independent.



The team initially encountered the odd depression in 2009. However, it was not until earlier this year when scientists were able to analyze the location using stereoscopic images.

"These landforms caught our eye because they're weird looking. They're concentrically fractured so they look like a bulls-eye. That can be a very diagnostic pattern you see in Earth materials" explained Levy.

Nevertheless, Levy's research is not the only study that tackled the existence of alien life in Mars recently. According to Dr. Christian Schroder from Stirling University, life in Mars could only have been possible beneath the planet's dry surface.


"For life to exist in the areas we investigated, it would need to find pockets far beneath the surface, located away from the dryness and radiation present on the ground" explained Schroder as reported by The Independent.

Saturn's North Pole Has Changed Color, But Why?

The observed color change in Saturn's north polar region between 2012 and 2016.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Hampton University

Spectacular photos captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a curious color change over Saturn's north pole. The occurrence may be linked to seasonal changes and the planet's enormous hexagonal jet stream.

The images were captured by Cassini's wide-angle camera between 2012 and 2016. Photos from 2012 show a bluish halo over Saturn's north pole, while those taken in 2016 show the same area with a more golden hue.

Saturn's north pole has a unique, six-sided jet stream known as "the hexagon,"which is approximately 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) wide. Winds of this hexagonal vortex whip through the planet's atmosphere at approximately 200 mph (322 km/h). [Cassini Snaps New Views of Saturn's Hexagon (Video)]

Preliminary hypotheses suggest the color change observed in the atmosphere over Saturn's northern hemisphere could be associated with the jet stream. For instance, the hexagonal vortex may act as barrier and prevent surrounding particles from entering the area. In this case, the sky over Saturn's north pole would have been cleared of haze or aerosols during the seven-year-long Saturnian winter, according to a statement from NASA. Then, haze production would have ramped up again when the pole was exposed to sunlight.

"Scientists are investigating potential causes for the change in color of the region inside the north-polar hexagon on Saturn," NASA officials said in the statement. "The color change is thought to be an effect of Saturn's seasons. In particular, the change from a bluish color to a more golden hue may be due to the increased production of photochemical hazes in the atmosphere as the north pole approaches summer solstice in May 2017."

Photochemical hazes, or aerosols, are created from reactions between sunlight and the atmosphere. Saturn experienced equinox in August 2009, and since then has been subjected to continuous sunshine. During this time, photochemical aerosols have accumulated in the sky above Saturn's north pole, creating the golden haze observed today.

However, other factors, including changes in solar heating and wind patterns, could cause a shift in the planet's atmospheric circulation, officials said in the statement. These factors may also play a role in the observed color changes, the officials said.

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, and the mission is expected to come to a close in September 2017. Researchers will continue to study data collected from Cassini to get a better understanding of this curious color change.

What's Up with 'Niku'? Object's Weird Orbit Puzzles Scientists

An artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object (KBO), located about 4 billion miles from the Sun.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

A mysterious object in the outer reaches of the solar system is revolving around the sun in an abnormal way, and scientists currently cannot explain why.

The object has been nicknamed Niku, a Chinese adjective that means "rebellious," by the group of researchers who announced its discovery in August. This name was chosen because the object's orbit is retrograde, meaning it moves in the opposite direction of nearly everything else in the solar system.

Niku was discovered by researchers who used the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii, and it lies in the outer reaches of the solar system, about 35 times farther away from the sun than Earth, beyond the orbit of Neptune. [The Pan-STARRS Asteroid Hunting Telescope]


Niku's orbit is inclined at an extreme 110-degree tilt with respect to the relatively thin, flat zone in which the eight major planets of the solar system orbit. In contrast, most trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are in much less inclined orbits.

The retrograde and extremely tilted nature of the orbits of Niku and another TNO nicknamed "Drac" led the scientists to try to find out whether there were objects with similar orbital characteristics that were listed in the Minor Planet Center database (which contains information about more than 1,000 small bodies in the solar system). They discovered four other objects with orbits that were either retrograde or nearly retrograde (meaning is orbit is inclined by less than, but close to, 90 degrees) and were also highly tilted. Two of these objects are Centaurs — bodies that orbit between Jupiter and Neptune.

A gif showing Niku moving across the sky, taken with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii.

Credit: Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System/PS1

The scientists were surprised to find that all six of these objects appear to orbit within a common plane.

"They're not randomly distributed in the sky — they all seem to be aligned," study co-author Matthew Payne, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told Space.com.

Computer simulations that the researchers carried out suggest that Niku and Drac may have been in their orbits for hundreds of millions of years. In addition, the scientists suggest that there may be more extremely inclined objects in this group.

It remains uncertain why these six objects apparently cluster together. Astrophysicists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena recently found that they may have been scattered off-kilter from the rest of the solar system by the gravitational pull of "Planet Nine," a world about 10 times Earth's mass that may exist about 500 times farther away from the sun than Earth.

Another possible origin for this group is "galactic tides." As the sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, it moves up and down within the disk of the galaxy, and "tidal forces are exerted on the solar system that are thought in general to have a variety of effects, such as disturbing the Oort Cloud and throwing comets into the solar system," Payne said.

The scientists detailed their findings Oct. 17 at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences and European Planetary Science Congress in Pasadena, California.

Massive cloud on collision course with the Milky Way

In 1963, an astronomy student named Gail Smith working at an observatory in the Netherlands discovered something odd – a massive cloud of gas orbiting the Milky Way galaxy.

Smith’s cloud contained enough gas to make two million stars the size of our sun, and it was moving through space at 700,000 miles per hour.

For the next 40-plus years the cloud remained a curiosity, one of a growing number of so-called high velocity clouds circling the Milky Way – interesting but not sensational.

Then something changed.

In the mid-2000s, radio astronomer Jay Lockman and colleagues took a closer look at Smith’s Cloud using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, and they were able to calculate the cloud’s orbit.

Smith’s Cloud, it turns out, is on a collision course with the Milky Way.

Thirty million years from now, give or take a few million years, it will crash into the Perseus Arm of our galaxy. The impact will compress clouds of gas in that spiral arm, causing a brilliant burst of star formation.

There’s no real danger to the Milky Way. Smith’s Cloud is minuscule compared to the gigantic spiral of stars that makes up the backbone of our galaxy. But the coming collision has sharply increased interest in Smith’s Cloud.

“We don't fully understand the Smith Cloud's origin,” said Andrew Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute. “There are two leading theories. One is that it was blown out of the Milky Way, perhaps by a cluster of supernova explosions. The other is that the Smith Cloud is an extragalactic object that has been captured by the Milky Way.”

To investigate these theories, Fox and colleagues recently peered into the cloud using the Hubble Space Telescope’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

One of the elements they found was sulfur, absorbing ultraviolet light from the bright cores of three galaxies far beyond the cloud.

By analyzing the amount of light Smith’s Cloud absorbs, the astronomers were able to measure the abundance of sulfur in the cloud.

“The abundance of sulfur in Smith’s Cloud is similar to the abundance of sulfur in the outer disk of our own Milky Way,” Fox said.

This means we have a family relationship.

“The cloud appears to have been ejected from within the Milky Way and is now falling back,” Fox said. “The cloud is fragmenting and evaporating as it plows through a halo of diffuse gas surrounding our galaxy. It's basically falling apart. This means that not all of the material in Smith’s Cloud will survive to form new stars. But if it does survive, or some part of it does, it should produce an impressive burst of star formation.”

While Fox’s work has cleared up some of the mystery of the Smith Cloud, many questions remain: What calamitous event could have catapulted it from the Milky Way's disk, and how did it remain intact?

These are questions for future research. Thirty million years to impact: the clock is ticking!