SPoW: June 8th, 2017
01R Aquarii consists of two symbiotic stars: a small white dwarf, and a red giant in orbit around each other. This composite of data from telescopes contains optical data, shown in red, and X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra Observatory in blue.
02Astronaut Thomas Pesquet took this photo of Florida at night from the International Space Station. The bright lights of cities—Miami, Tampa, Orlando—sparkle.
03Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers measured the alignment of a white dwarf passing by another star, recording a change in coordinates that enabled astronomers to calculate its mass. This white dwarf’s mass is around 68% of the sun’s.
04The brightest infrared galaxies in the universe are 10,000 times more luminous than the Milky Way. Shown here in images taken through the Hubble Space Telescope’s cosmic magnifying lenses, the galaxies show arcs, streaks, and rings.
05This image, taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows shallows pits in the carbon dioxide ice on the planet’s surface. The topography at upper right could be an impact crater or a collapse pit.
06This image of Saturn’s north pole, taken at 617,000 miles away by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, shows one of the planet’s moons, Mimas, as a speck on the upper right.
