Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: A Star Cluster Gets Patriotic
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-imagery-confirms-new-dark-spot-on-neptune">NASA</a>01SPoW-Jun23-03.jpg
This new Hubble Space Telescope image confirms the presence of a dark vortex in the atmosphere of Neptune. The full visible-light image (left) shows that the dark feature resides near and below a patch of bright clouds in the planet's southern hemisphere. The full-color image (right) is a close-up of the complex feature. The vortex is a high-pressure system. The image at bottom right shows that the vortex is best seen at blue wavelengths.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-gazes-at-stars-of-the-large-magellanic-cloud">ESA/Hubble & NASA</a>02SPoW-Jun23-07.jpg
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the star cluster NGC 1854, a gathering of red, white and blue stars in the southern constellation of Dorado (The Dolphinfish). NGC 1854 is located about 135,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest cosmic neighbors and a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The LMC is a hotbed of vigorous star formation. Rich in interstellar gas and dust, the galaxy is home to approximately 60 globular clusters and 700 open clusters.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/a-super-grand-canyon-on-pluto-s-moon-charon">NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</a>03SPoW-Jun23-02.jpg
Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, is home to an unusual canyon system that’s far longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon. The inset above magnifies a portion of the eastern limb in the global view of Charon at left, imaged by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft several hours before its closest approach on July 14, 2015. A deep canyon informally named Argo Chasma is seen grazing the limb. The section of it seen here measures approximately 185 miles long. As far as New Horizons scientists can tell, Argo’s total length is approximately 430 miles long – for comparison, Arizona’s Grand Canyon is 280 miles long.
<a href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/06/The_spider_in_the_loop">ESA and the Planck Collaboration</a>04SPoW-Jun23-06.jpg
This multicoloured swirl of yellow and blue shows a prominent ring of gas near the North Celestial Pole. The pole appears to be fixed in place, while the rest of the night sky slowly circles around it because of Earth’s rotation. This image comes courtesy of ESA’s Planck satellite, which spent years mapping the entire sky in exquisite detail between 2009 and 2013.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia20486/shadow-below">NASA</a>05SPoW-Jun23-04.jpg
As Saturn's northern hemisphere summer approaches, the shadows of the rings creep ever southward across the planet. Here, the ring shadows appear to obscure almost the entire southern hemisphere, while the planet's north pole and its six-sided jet stream, known as "the hexagon," are fully illuminated by the sun.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/27744663791/in/dateposted/">ESA</a>06SPoW-Jun23-01.jpg
Astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of high-energy particles called a wind nebula around a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star, or magnetar, for the first time. The find offers a unique window into the properties, environment and outburst history of magnetars, which are the strongest magnets in the universe.
