Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Galactic Gravitational Field Creates a Cosmic Funhouse Mirror
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/a-lot-of-galaxies-need-guarding-in-this-hubble-view">NASA</a>01SPoW-May5-06.jpg
The Abell 370 cluster contains several hundred galaxies, kept together by gravity’s pull. Spiral galaxies (like the Milky Way) are younger, and have more of a blue hue, while huge elliptical galaxies, each holding hundreds of billions of stars, shine a bright yellow-white. The gravitational field of the cluster acts as a funhouse mirror, distorting light so that more remote galaxies show as arcs of blue.
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This enhanced color image shows Jupiter’s south pole, created with data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Close to the pole, the streams of air look like tangled threads. Further out, see ovals scattered across the cloudscape: The planet is known for its Great Red Spot, but Jupiter also boasts myriad smaller, still visible storms.
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In this image, the largest infrared photo ever taken of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy, the VISTA telescope shows millions of stars, including those in the bright 47 Tucanae cluster in the center. While the galaxy can be seen by the naked eye, interstellar dust clouds obscure such a clear view for visible light telescopes.
<a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21605">NASA</a>04SPoW-May5-02.jpg
In Mars’ young Krupac Crater, steep gullies line slopes close to the planet’s equator. Within the gullies, sedimentary deposits match colors from the ancient eroded bedrock.
<a href="http://m.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/04/A_sea_of_galaxies">ESA</a>05SPoW-May5-03.jpg
This image, taken by Hubble, shows a range of spiral galaxies, tilted at different viewpoints: Some, seen at an edge, appear like flat discs, while others, seen face-on, look more like a glimmering diamond.
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia11241/panorama-with-active-linear-dune-in-gale-crater-mars">NASA</a>06SPoW-May5-01.jpg
This 360-degree mosaic taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the view over the red planet’s Bagnold Dunes. This spring, the rover visited four linear dunes, collecting data to compare with its visits of crescent-shaped dunes in 2015 and 2016, in the first close study of dunes beyond Earth.
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Taken by the Cassini spacecraft from 20,000 miles away, this image shows the north pole of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. The pole is covered in craters, which suggests that the surface hasn’t experienced geologic activity for many years.
