Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Nobody Puts Galaxy in a Corner
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1604/"> Digitized Sky Survey 2/NASA/ESA</a>01SPoW-Feb0516-01
The ‘Flying Saucer’ is a disc made of gas and dust, surrounding a young star in the Rho Ophiuchi star formation region. Astronomers used the ALMA and IRAM telescopes to make the first direct measurement of the disc’s temperature and discovered it’s much colder than expected: 7 degrees above absolute zero. The discovery may have significant consequences for understanding of protoplanetary discs in the future.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/blast-from-black-hole-in-a-galaxy-far-far-away.html"> NASA</a>02SPoW-Feb0516-05
The Pictor A galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, and not one, but *two* enormous beams of particles, or jets. The jets are created from huge amounts of gravitational energy released as material swirls towards the black hole’s event horizon. The brightest jet (pictured center right) displays continuous x-ray emission over a distance of 300,000 light years. The second jet (pictured center left) is more faint and pointing in the opposite direction, known as a “counter jet.” By studying the details of the structure seen in both x-rays and radio waves, scientists seek to gain a deeper understanding of these huge collimated blasts.
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1605a/"> ESO</a>03SPoW-Feb0516-HP
This spiral galaxy NGC 986 is underappreciated. It’s not often imaged due to its proximity to the famous and rich Formax Cluster of galaxies, but NGC 986 is still a stunner. The image shows the galaxy almost perfectly from the top, or – as astronomers say – face-on. It allows us to see the two main spiral arms and also a central bar-shaped structure, composed of stars and dust, that makes it barred. About two thirds of spiral galaxies contain a bar, making NGC 986 the perfect place to study the galaxy structure and find out more about our home galaxy, which is difficult to study from within.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/saturns-rings-less-than-meets-the-eye"> NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute</a>04SPoW-Feb0516-03
Saturn’s “B ring” has long been known as the brightest and most opaque (appearing black in this image). But turns out it’s not the heavy weight you'd imagine. A team of scientists recently discovered the B ring doesn’t have as much mass as expected, and varies in different areas. Analyzing spiral density waves allowed scientists to “weigh” the nearly opaque center of the B ring, which they hope will provide clues to the stunning rings’ age and creation.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-views-merging-galaxies-in-eridanus"> ESA/Hubble & NASA</a>05SPoW-Feb0516-06
The galaxy NGC 1487 is in the middle of a merger … or several mergers. Located in the southern constellation of Eridanus, NGC 1487 is made up of at least two galaxies coming together to form a single entity. Each galaxy has lost almost all traces of its original appearance, as stars and gas have been thrown by gravity in an elaborate cosmic whirl.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-mysterious-floating-hills"> NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</a>06SPoW-Feb0516-02
Hills of water ice on Pluto ‘float’ in a sea of frozen nitrogen and move over time like icebergs in Earth’s Arctic Ocean—another example of Pluto’s fascinating geological activity. The hills are likely fragments of the rugged uplands that broke away and are being carried by the nitrogen glaciers into Sputnik Planum.
<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20253"> NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU</a>07SPoW-Feb0516-04
A false color image of surface materials in the plains of Sabaea Terra, a vast region on Mars. It was taken with the THEMIS VIS camera, which contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image.
