Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Hydrogen Poppin’ Like Champagne
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1521/">ESO</a>01eso14xxa-vv391
__The star forming cloud RCW 34.__ In the brightest region of this glowing nebula called RCW 34, gas is heated dramatically by young stars and expands through the surrounding cooler gas. Once the heated hydrogen reaches the borders of the gas cloud, it bursts outwards into the vacuum like the contents of an uncorked champagne bottle — this process is referred to as champagne flow. But the young star-forming region RCW 34 has more to offer than a few bubbles; there seem to have been multiple episodes of star formation within the same cloud.
<a href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1511/">Artist's Illustration: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada (ESO)</a>02SPW-May29-08
Large Hubble survey confirms link between mergers and supermassive black holes with relativistic jets. In the most extensive survey of its kind ever conducted, a team of scientists have found an unambiguous link between the presence of supermassive black holes that power high-speed, radio-signal-emitting jets and the merger history of their host galaxies. Almost all of the galaxies hosting these jets were found to be merging with another galaxy, or to have done so recently. The results lend significant weight to the case for jets being the result of merging black holes and will be presented in the Astrophysical Journal.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/pia18316/rheas-horizon">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute </a>03SPW-May29-04
Rhea's Horizon. The surface of Rhea (949 miles or 1527 kilometers across) has been sculpted largely by impact cratering, each crater a reminder of a collision sometime in the moon's history. On more geologically active worlds like Earth, the craters would be erased by erosion, volcanoes or tectonics. But on quieter worlds like Rhea, the craters remain until they are disrupted or covered up by the ejecta of a subsequent impact.
<a href="https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1521a/">NASA & ESA</a>04The most crowded place in the Milky Way
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. It is located about 25 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), close to the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is, like its neighbour the Quintuplet Cluster, a fairly young astronomical object at between two and four million years old. The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the Sun and its nearest star there would be over 100 000 stars!
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/165309674464e758889a6/">ESO/G. Brammer </a>05165309674464e758889a6
A fish-eye view of the VLT. A ring of air glow encompasses the VLT in this fish-eye shot, while the band of the Milky Way bisects the night sky.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/pia19340/herschel-s-view-of-g49-filament">ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/Ke Wang et al. 2015</a>06SPW-May29-05
Herschel’s View of G49 Filament. New images of huge filamentary structures of gas and dust from the Herschel space observatory reveal how matter is distributed across our Milky Way galaxy. Long and flimsy threads emerge from a twisted mix of material, taking on complex shapes. This image shows a filament called G49, which contains 80,000 suns' worth of mass. This huge but slender structure of gas and dust extends about 280 light-years in length, while its diameter is only about 5 light-years across. In this image, longer-wavelength light has been assigned visible colors. Light with wavelengths of 70 microns is blue; 160-micron light is green; and 350-micron light is red. Cooler gas and dust are seen in red and yellow, with temperatures as low as minus 421 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 252 degrees Celsius).
<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4605">NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA</a>07SPW-May29-07
Dawn Spirals Closer to Ceres, Returns a New View. A new view of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 23, shows finer detail is becoming visible on the dwarf planet. The spacecraft snapped the image at a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) with a resolution of 1,600 feet (480 meters) per pixel. The image is part of a sequence taken for navigational purposes.
