You know that hazy, cloudy, yellowish moon of Saturn called Titan? This is the same moon! Using years’ worth of infrared data from Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, scientists have created the most detailed view of Titan we’ve ever seen. Because of the thick atmosphere enveloping this moon, it’s ordinarily a challenge to see through the clouds and haze. With infrared? A whole new world, or moon, opens up.
Sometimes the Earth, seen from space, can have features more like those you’d expect on alien planets. This particular photo is of the Chukchi Sea, a stretch of Arctic water north of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia. NASA’s Landsat8 satellite captured these lovely blue and green swirls—blooms of phytoplankton—just a few weeks ago. Looks almost warm enough for a summer swim!
The Pillars of Creation, part of the Eagle nebula, are perhaps the most renowned nebula feature of our time, and for good reason: They’re beautiful. These towers got their name because they were a stellar nursery, a place where new stars are born. Yes, the key word is “were.” Scientists think a supernova explosion felled the pillars some years ago. However, the light from that cataclysm hasn’t reached us yet; what we’re seeing in this photo is about 5,700 years old, since that’s how long it took the nebula’s light to reach the Hubble Space Telescope.
The dwarf planet Ceres, the closest such planet to Earth, resides in the asteroid belt between our world and Mars. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting Ceres for over three years and has spotted some pretty interesting things close up—including these bright, salty regions in the impact crater known as Occator Crater. Dawn’s mission is due to end sometime in the next couple of months as it runs out of fuel, though it will continue forever orbiting Ceres. We just won’t be able to communicate with it anymore.
Saturn, you’re so awesome. The Cassini spacecraft took this stunning pic of the ringed planet in January 2010, with the light from the night side enhanced so we can better see the demarcations in the rings. Although Cassini ended its mission when it entered Saturn’s atmosphere last September, we’ll always have these grand views of the most remarkable planet (other than ours) in our solar system.
This sparkling cluster of stars is actually an irregular galaxy called UGC 12682. The bright blue regions indicate star formation, and their contrast against the dark fabric of space makes this photo all the more alluring. Galaxy UGC 12682 is 70 million light years from Earth, so all the baby stars here probably have grown up by now.
