Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Dying Star Insists on Being Dramatic About It

  • Image may contain Universe Space Astronomy Outer Space Nebula Animal and Fish
    <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-views-a-colorful-demise-of-a-sun-like-star">NASA, ESA</a>
    01

    SPoW-Sept22-06.jpg

    NASA’s Hubble telescope took this photo of a star dying by discarding its outer layers of gas, leaving a white dwarf (the white spot in the middle) at its core.
  • Image may contain Soil Fossil and Archaeology
    <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21063">NASA/JPL</a>
    02

    SPoW-Sept22-03.jpg

    Shown in HiRISE infrared color, fissures lined with sand on the surface of Mars look blue, contrasting with the dust covering the rest of the terrain.
  • Image may contain Nature Outdoors Universe Space Astronomy Outer Space Nebula Night and Milky Way
    <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1638a/">ESO</a>
    03

    SPoW-Sept22-05.jpg

    This photo, taken at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, shows the Milky Way overhead, orange Mars on the left, and the magenta Carina Nebula in the upper middle.
  • Image may contain Astronomy Universe Space Outer Space and Outdoors
    <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1633c/">NASA, ESA</a>
    04

    SPoW-Sept22-01.jpg

    This photo, combining over two million seconds of exposure time taken of the Fornax constellation over the past decade, is the deepest image ever made of the universe.
  • Image may contain Ground Nature and Outdoors
    <a href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/09/Methane-flooded_canyons_on_Titan">NASA/JPL</a>
    05

    SPoW-Sept22-02.jpg

    On Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, a river of methane (from the upper left) branches into Ligeia Mare, a methane-rich sea.
  • Image may contain Nature Sand Outdoors and Soil
    <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21066">NASA/JPL</a>
    06

    SPoW-Sept22-04.jpg

    On Mars, huge lava flows create channels and pits in the landscape, as captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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