Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: A Galaxy Takes a Punch Like a Pro
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-spies-a-spiral-snowflake">ESA/Hubble & NASA</a>01SPoW-May13-05.jpg
Together with irregular galaxies, spiral galaxies make up approximately 60 percent of the galaxies in the local universe. However, despite their prevalence, each spiral galaxy is unique — like snowflakes, no two are alike. This is demonstrated by the striking face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6814, whose luminous nucleus and spectacular sweeping arms, rippled with an intricate pattern of dark dust, are captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/mercury-transit-composite-image">NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO</a>02SPoW-May13-04.jpg
On May 9, 2016, Mercury passed directly between the sun and Earth. This event – which happens about 13 times each century – is called a transit. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, studies the sun 24/7 and captured the entire seven-and-a-half-hour event. This composite image of Mercury’s journey across the sun was created with visible-light images from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on SDO.
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/ngc3532_v2_8k/">ESO/G. Beccari</a>03SPoW-May13-01.jpg
The MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile captured this richly colorful view of the bright star cluster NGC 3532. Here can be seen something of the process of creating such a striking image. The cluster is photographed separately through three color filters, one recording blue light, one recording green light and one recording red light. Combining the three images produces the natural colors of the final image. This enables us to see clearly the different types of star in the cluster. Some of the stars shine with a hot bluish color, but many of the more massive ones have become red giants and glow with a rich orange hue.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-catches-views-of-a-jet-rotating-with-comet-252plinear">NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute)</a>04SPoW-May13-03.gif
This timelapse is from a sequence of images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows Comet 252P/LINEAR as it passed by Earth. The visit was one of the closest encounters between a comet and our planet at 3.3 million miles away on March 21, 2016.
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1619a/">ESO</a>05SPoW-May13-02.jpg
This image shows the Vela ring galaxy, visible as a bright core surrounded by a baby blue halo. As the name suggests, this ring galaxy — located in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sails) — is notable due to its compact core and large circular belt of gas and stars. It is thought that ring galaxies like this are created when larger galaxies are punctured by a smaller galactic aggressor, which, passing through the heart of its more sizable victim, triggers a shock wave that spreads outwards. This pushes gas to the galaxy’s periphery, where it begins to collapse and form new stars. The Vela ring galaxy is unusual in that it actually exhibits at least two rings, suggesting that the collision was not a recent one.
<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20482">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute</a>06SPoW-May13-06.jpg
Life is hard for a little moon. Epimetheus, seen here with Saturn in the background, is lumpy and misshapen, thanks in part to its size and formation process. Epimetheus did not form with all of those craters in place -- rather, bombardment over the eons has left this tiny moon's surface heavily pitted.
