Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: A Neon Nebula Struts Its Stuff
<a href="https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1616a/">ESO</a>01SPoW-May19-01.jpg
In this image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), light from blazing blue stars energizes the gas left over from the stars’ recent formation. The result is a strikingly colorful emission nebula, called LHA 120-N55, in which the stars are adorned with a mantle of glowing gas. Astronomers study these beautiful displays to learn about the conditions in places where new stars develop.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/new-hubble-portrait-of-mars"> NASA</a>02SPoW-May19-07.jpg
Bright, frosty polar caps, and clouds above a vivid, rust-colored landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic seasonal planet in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken on May 12, 2016. This is just a few days before Mars opposition on May 22, when the sun and the red planet will be on exact opposite sides of Earth. On May 30, Mars will be the closest it has been to Earth in 11 years, at a distance of 46.8 million miles. Mars is especially photogenic during opposition because it can be seen fully illuminated by the sun.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-sees-star-clusters-orbiting-a-galaxy"> ESA/Hubble & NASA</a>03SPoW-May19-06.jpg
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows star clusters encircling a galaxy, like bees buzzing around a hive. The hive in question is an edge-on lenticular galaxy NGC 5308, located just under 100 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). Members of a galaxy type that lies somewhere between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy, lenticular galaxies such as NGC 5308 are disk galaxies that have used up, or lost, the majority of their gas and dust. As a result, they experience very little ongoing star formation and consist mainly of old and aging stars.
<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20588">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona</a>04SPoW-May19-04.jpg
This HiRISE image shows an exposure of bedrock on the floor of Bakhuysen Crater, a 90-mile diameter impact crater in Noachis Terra. The bedrock is highly fragmented and fractured. The distinct false-color in the image may indicate that the tan-colored, fractured bedrock may have been altered in the presence of water.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/stargazing-from-the-international-space-station">NASA</a>05SPoW-May19-02.jpg
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station see the world at night on every orbit — that’s 16 times each crew day. An astronaut took this broad, short-lens photograph of Earth’s night lights while looking out over the remote reaches of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean. ISS was passing over the island nation of Kiribati at the time, about 1,600 miles south of Hawaii.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/water-etchings-in-western-mexico-sands">NASA</a>06SPoW-May19-03.jpg
Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA (@astro\_tim) shared this May 15, 2016 photograph taken from the International Space Station to social media, writing, "Water etchings in western @Mexico sands. @Space\_Station #Explore"
<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20665">NASA</a>07SPoW-May19-05b.jpg
Mount Ruapehu Volcano in New Zealand has been on a level 1 volcanic alert for some time, indicating minor volcanic unrest. Since late April 2016, the temperature of the lake in the volcano's crater has risen from 68 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Authorities have raised the volcanic alert level to level 2, indicating "moderate to heightened volcanic unrest." These images were acquired April 20 by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The left image depicts vegetation in red, and the crater lake is light blue. The right thermal infrared image shows hotter areas in white.
