SPoW_Jan22_2018 / Lauren Joseph / Jan 25th, 2018 @ 18:56
01Sometimes violent impacts in space make for spectacular images. The Cartwheel galaxy, seen on the right, is the product of two colliding galaxies. The bright blue ring is the result of a shockwave emanating so far out into space that it’s an incredible 1.5 times larger than our own Milky Way.
02It’s hard to believe this is what the night sky would look like without streetlamps and house lights. A tapestry of starlight covers the night sky over the ExTrA telescopes in Chile. These telescopes are used to search for exoplanets orbiting nearby stars.
03What pretty purple lights! These seemingly benign points of light glow in the X-ray spectrum and are actually the result of a neutron star merger. Neutron stars are some of the most dense and strange objects in the universe. This specific merger created an impact so big it bent the fabric of spacetime and sent a ripple called a gravitational wave. This wave traveled from this merger over 138 million years and was just detected last year by scientists at LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory.
04X marks the many spots. These criss-cross patterns, called ship-tracks, are created by ships moving across the ocean.The pollution emitted from these large vessels attracts the water vapor in the sky, which collects onto the exhaust particles to leave a wispy line trailing behind.
05We all know Mark Watney encountered some trouble on Mars from a dust storm, but it was nothing as severe as this. On the left is normal Mars. On the right is what Mars looks like during the dust storm that kicked up in 2007. Scientists predict a similar storm will hit starting in 2018.
06This blood red moon is visible during a lunar eclipse. The reddish tinge is the sun's reflection off of the Earth’s atmosphere, which temporarily colors our otherwise grayish satellite with a lovely crimson glow.
