In pictures (Page 3)
Speed demon creates a shock
Just as some drivers obey the speed limit while others treat every road as if it were the Autobahn, some stars move through space faster than others. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captured this image of the star Alpha…
The most distant mature galaxy cluster
'We have measured the distance to the most distant mature cluster of galaxies ever found,' says the lead author of the study in which the observations from ESO's VLT have been used, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris). 'The surprising thing is that when…
The scars of impacts on Mars
ESA's Mars Express has returned new images of an elongated impact crater in the southern hemisphere of Mars. Located just south of the Huygens basin, it could have been carved out by a train of projectiles striking the planet at a shallow angle…
Huge new marine protected area offers oasis and hope for endangered sharks and sea turtles
A massive new marine protected area around Cocos Island is a beacon of hope for ocean health and human well-being in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, and will offer endangered marine species such as hammerhead sharks and leatherback turtles, as…
Spitzer captures infrared rays from a Sunflower
The various spiral arm segments of the Sunflower galaxy, also known as Messier 63, show up vividly in this image taken in infrared light by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light is sensitive to the dust lanes in spiral galaxies, which…
The dusty disc of NGC 247
The spiral galaxy NGC 247 is one of the closest spiral galaxies of the southern sky. In this new view from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile large numbers of the galaxy's component stars are clearly resolved and…
Planet formation in action?
Using ESO's Very Large Telescope an international team of astronomers has been able to study the short-lived disc of material around a young star that is in the early stages of making a planetary system. For the first time a smaller companion…
Reflected glory
Messier 78 is a fine example of a reflection nebula. The ultraviolet radiation from the stars that illuminate it is not intense enough to ionise the gas to make it glow - its dust particles simply reflect the starlight that falls on them. Despite…
Surprise hidden in Titan's smog: Cirrus-like clouds
Every day is a bad-air day on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Blanketed by haze far worse than any smog belched out in Los Angeles, Beijing or even Sherlock Holmes' London, the moon looks like a dirty orange ball. Described once as crude oil without…
Earth-size planet candidates found in habitable zone
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and…
