ESA Rosetta mission: Philae lander OSIRIS NAC Camera captures landing data

This collection of images was acquired when Rosetta was about 15km above the surface of 67P

High-resolution pictures have now been released of the Philae probe in the act of landing on Comet 67P last Wednesday.

They were acquired by the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on the Rosetta satellite, which had dropped the little robot towards the surface of the "ice mountain".

The images are presented as a mosaic covering the half-hour or so around the "first touchdown," the probe then bounced to a stop about 1km away.

Philae lost battery power on Saturday and is no longer talking with Earth.

Scientists still have not located the craft's current resting spot.

But European Space Agency (ESA) controllers have not given up hope of hearing from the plucky robot again, if it can somehow get enough light on to its solar panels to recharge its systems.

Getting a precise fix on its location, to then photograph its present predicament would provide a better idea of whether this is likely to happen.

The new NAC images will certainly help in this respect because they show the direction the lander took as it bounced away.

At the weekend, ESA presented some fascinating views of the first touchdown taken by Rosetta's navigation cameras, but the OSIRIS NAC system has substantially better resolution.

It's a trap
The new mosaic is produced by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, which operates Osiris.

It details Philae's descent, and the impact mark it leaves on 67P's surface. You then see the 100kg probe heading away on its initial bounce.

NB: All times are in GMT on Wednesday. The resolution is 28 cm/pixel.

This rebound reached hundreds of metres above the comet and lasted almost two hours.

When Philae came back down, it made another small leap, which took it into a high-walled trap.

Telemetry and pictures from the robot itself indicate this location is covered in deep shadow for most of 67P's day.

As a consequence, Philae receives insufficient solar power to re-boot and form a radio link to the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft.

ESA cannot be sure the robot will ever come back to life, but even if it does not the agency says it is "hugely happy" with what was achieved in the more than 50 hours following landing.

The probe managed to complete over 80% of its planned primary science campaign on the surface.

MUPUS

'Rock' hard
This data was pulled off the robot just before its sagging energy reserves dropped it into sleep mode.

Little of the results have so far been released by the various instrument teams. The one major exception is MUPUS.

This sensor package from DLR the German space agency's Institute for Planetary Research deployed a thermometer on the end of a hammer.

It retrieved a number of temperature profiles but broke as it tried to burrow its way into the comet's subsurface.

Scientists say this shows the icy material underlying 67P's dust covering to be far harder than anyone anticipated - having the tensile strength of some rocks.

It also helps explain why Philae bounced so high on that first touchdown.

The 4km-wide comet has little gravity, so when key landing systems designed to hold the robot down failed at the crucial moment, the probe would have been relying on thick, soft, compressive layers to absorb its impact.

However much dust it did encounter at that moment, it clearly was not enough to prevent Philae making its giant rebound.

Cassini captures evolution of mysterious feature in Titan sea - Video

These three images, created from Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, show the appearance and evolution of a mysterious feature in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon Titan. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell



NASA's Cassini spacecraft is monitoring the evolution of a mysterious feature in a large hydrocarbon sea on Saturn's moon Titan.

The feature covers an area of about 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest seas on Titan.

It has now been observed twice by Cassinis radar experiment, but its appearance changed between the two apparitions.

The mysterious feature, which appears bright in radar images against the dark background of the liquid sea, was first spotted during Cassini's July 2013 Titan flyby.

Ligeia Mare on Titan. 

Credit: NASA Cassini

Previous observations showed no sign of bright features in that part of Ligeia Mare.

Scientists were perplexed to find the feature had vanished when they looked again, over several months, with low-resolution radar and Cassini's infrared imager (VIMS).

This led some team members to suggest it might have been a transient feature, but during Cassini's flyby on August 21, 2014, the feature was again visible, and its appearance had changed during the 11 months since it was last seen.

Scientists on the radar team are confident that the feature is not an artifact, or flaw, in their data, which would have been one of the simplest explanations.

They also do not see evidence that its appearance results from evaporation in the sea, as the overall shoreline of Ligeia Mare has not changed noticeably.

The team has suggested the feature could be surface waves, rising bubbles, floating solids, solids suspended just below the surface, or perhaps something more exotic.

The researchers suspect that the appearance of this feature could be related to changing seasons on Titan, as summer draws near in the moon's northern hemisphere.

Monitoring such changes is a major goal for Cassini's current extended mission.

"Science loves a mystery, and with this enigmatic feature, we have a thrilling example of ongoing change on Titan," said Stephen Wall, the deputy team lead of Cassini's radar team, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We're hopeful that we'll be able to continue watching the changes unfold and gain insights about what's going on in that alien sea."

More information: Images of the feature taken during the Cassini flybys are available at: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18430

ESA Integral catches dead star exploding in a Type 1a Supernova

Astronomers studying SN2014J, a Type Ia supernova discovered in January 2014, have found proof that this type of supernova is caused by a white dwarf star reigniting and exploding.

This finding was made by using ESA’s Integral observatory to detect gamma rays from the radioactive elements created during the explosion.

This sequence of artist's impressions shows some of the steps leading up to and following the explosion.

A white dwarf, a star that contain up to 1.4 times the mass of the Sun squeezed into a volume about the same size as the Earth, leeches matter from a companion star (image 1).

The Integral measurements suggest that a belt of gas from the companion star builds up around the equator of the white dwarf (image 2). 

This belt detonates (image 3) and triggers the internal explosion that becomes the supernova (image 4). 

Material from the explosion expands (image 5) and eventually becomes transparent to gamma rays (image 6).

Astronomers using ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory have demonstrated beyond doubt that dead stars known as white dwarfs can reignite and explode as supernovae.

The finding came after the unique signature of gamma rays from the radioactive elements created in one of these explosions was captured for the first time.

The explosions in question are known as Type Ia supernovae, long suspected to be the result of a white dwarf star blowing up because of a disruptive interaction with a companion star.

However, astronomers have lacked definitive evidence that a white dwarf was involved until now.

The ‘smoking gun’ in this case was evidence for radioactive nuclei being created by fusion during the thermonuclear explosion of the white dwarf star.

“Integral has all the capabilities to detect the signature of this fusion, but we had to wait for more than ten years for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch a nearby supernova,” says Eugene Churazov, from the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, Russia and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics,in Garching, Germany.

Although Type Ia supernovae are expected to occur frequently across the Universe they are rare occurrences in any one galaxy, with typical rates of one every few hundred years.

NASA SDO captures long solar filament

Credit: SDO

A very long filament hung across the sun’s surface for over a week from July 31 to Aug. 6, 2014.

The filament appears as the dark line going diagonally across the center of the sun in this image.

Filaments consist of clouds of cooler gas raised above the sun’s surface by magnetic forces.

Normally they exhibit a great deal of instability and break apart in days or even hours.

This image was obtained in the 191 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, and has been tinted red instead of the usual brown colour.

ESA Astronaut Gerst captures image of Windswept Valleys, North Africa

Image Credit: Alexander Gerst/ESA/NASA

Expedition 40 Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency posted this photograph of windswept valleys in Northern Africa, taken from the International Space Station, to social media on July 6, 2014.

Astronuats aboard the International Space Station (ISS) regularly photograph the Earth from their unique point of view located 200 miles above the surface.

These photographs help to record how the planet is changing over time, from human-caused changes like urban growth and reservoir construction, to natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions.

NASA Opportunity rover captures Martian vista from ridgeline

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Cornell Univ. /Arizona State Univ. Click on the image to view it full size.

The rim surrounding Endeavour Crater on Mars recedes southward, then sweeps around to the east in a vista obtained by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

The view is from high on the south end of the "Murray Ridge" portion of the crater's western rim.

The image was assembled from multiple exposures taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) in April. It shows locations along the rim that the rover has subsequently reached and may explore in the future.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover spent several months exploring portions of Murray Ridge. Since reaching the local high point on the ridgeline from which this panorama was taken, the rover has proceeded southward to reach an exposure of aluminum-rich clay detected from orbit.

During Opportunity's first decade on Mars and the 2004-2010 career of its twin, Spirit, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project yielded a range of findings proving wet environmental conditions on ancient Mars, some very acidic, others milder and more conducive to supporting life.

Opportunity's Tracks Near Crater Rim Ridgeline: The component images for this 360-degree panorama were taken by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity after the rover drove about 97 feet (29.5 meters) during the mission's 3,642nd Martian day, or sol (April 22, 2014). Click on the image to view it full size.

The rover drove southwestward that sol, so the tracks from this end-of-drive position recede toward the northeast. 

For scale, the distance between the two parallel tracks is about 3.3 feet (1 meter). The position is just west of the ridgeline of the west rim of Endeavour Crater. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Approaching a Target Deposit on Mars Crater Rim: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to capture the component images for this 360-degree view near the ridgeline of Endeavour Crater's western rim. Click on the image to view it full size.

The view is centered toward southeast, from the rover's position just west of the western rim's ridgeline on the mission's 3,659th Martian day, or sol (May 10, 2014). 

The western rim of the crater extends northward to the left and southward to the right. Endeavour Crater is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Its distant rim is visible on the horizon at center. 

The outcrop on the slope to the right of center corresponds to the northern end of an area where a concentration of aluminum-containing clay has been detected in observations by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer (CRISM) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. 

That detection from orbit made the outcrop a favored target for investigation by Opportunity. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Endeavour Crater Rim From 'Murray Ridge' on Mars, False Colour. Click on the image to view it full size.

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Cornell Univ. /Arizona State Univ.

More information: The panorama is available online: www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: MAHLI Captures a mosaic of Mars

A mosaic of MSL MAHLI images acquired on Sol 613. CLICK on the photo to see the full image

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /MSSS

This is Curiosity's latest "selfie," a mosaic made up of about a dozen images acquired with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument on April 27-28, 2014 (Sol 613).

The 5.5-km-high Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) rising in the background.

There are plenty of discrepancies in the mosaic tiling but, some say, it imparts some character to Curiosity.

Visible in the mosaic are Curiosity's cylindrical RUHF antenna and a bit of her Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) visible in the lower center.

NOAA GOES-East Image: Captures weather system that spawned tornadoes

This NOAA GOES-East satellite image from Monday, Apr. 28, 2014 at 13:01 UTC/9:01 a.m. EDT shows the same storm system that generated the severe weather outbreak yesterday, has moved to the east. 

Credit: NASA /NOAA GOES Project

NASA has just released an animation of visible and infrared satellite data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite that shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern U.S. states on April 27-28, 2014.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the system that revealed powerful storms, high into the troposphere.

This storm system generated reports of tornadoes from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Coupled with local weather observations, soundings, and computer models, data from satellites like NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-East or GOES-13) gives forecasters information about developing weather situations.

In real-time, the NOAA's GOES-East satellite data in animated form showed forecasters how the area of severe weather was developing and moving.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite sits in a fixed orbit in space capturing visible and infrared imagery of weather over the eastern U.S. and Atlantic Ocean.

The GOES-East satellite is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created the animation of GOES-East satellite data that covered the period during the tornado outbreak.

The GOES-East animation of visible and infrared imagery runs 31 seconds. The animation begins on April 27 at 00:15 UTC (April 26 at 8:15 p.m. EDT) and runs through April 28 at 14:15 UTC/10:15 a.m. EDT.

By 14:45 UTC/10:45 a.m. EDT on April 27 the animation shows the squall line of thunderstorms developing.


This animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite data shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern U.S. states on April 27-28, 2014. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

To create the video and imagery, NASA/NOAA's GOES Project takes the cloud data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite and overlays it on a true-color image of land and ocean created by data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.

Together, those data created the entire picture of the storm system and show its movement.

A NASA satellite also captured an image of the storm, collecting infrared data on it as it passed overhead on April 27.

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. a false-colored image was created of the storm system using data gathered by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on April 27 at 18:59 UTC (1:59 p.m. CDT).

The AIRS image showed very cold cloud top temperatures indicating that the thunderstorms had strong uplift that pushed cloud tops to the top of the troposphere.

Some of those thunderstorms had cloud tops as cold as 200 kelvin (-99.6 F/-73.1C). Temperatures drop to just under 220 degrees kelvin at the top of the troposphere (and where the tropopause begins).

This false-colored infrared image from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows the cold cloud top temperatures associated with the severe thunderstorms that brought severe weather to seven states on Apr. 27. 

Credit: NASA/JPL, Ed Olsen

NASA's Curiosity rover captures images of asteroids Ceres and Vesta

For the first time, NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of an asteroid from the surface of Mars -- two of them, in fact.

The imagery recorded by Curiosity and beamed back to Earth feature Ceres and Vesta, two of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt that runs between between Mars and Jupiter.

This Curiosity first was also a bit of a coincidence, as the SUV-sized rover had aimed its cameras at the Martian sky in order to snap shots of the Red Planet's two moons, not hunt for asteroids whizzing by.

"This imaging was part of an experiment checking the opacity of the atmosphere at night in Curiosity's location on Mars, where water-ice clouds and hazes develop during this season," camera team member Mark Lemmon, of Texas A&M University, explained in a statement.

"The two Martian moons were the main targets that night, but we chose a time when one of the moons was near Ceres and Vesta in the sky."

Mark Lemmon

NASA is currently on its way to get an even closer look at this two giant space rocks.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited the 350-mile-wide Vesta asteroid in 2011 and 2012, and it is preparing to orbit the 590-mile-wide Ceres in 2015.

Hubble captures a stellar "sneeze"

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine

Look at the bright star in the middle of this image.

It appears as if it just sneezed. This sight will only last for a few thousand years—a blink of an eye in the young star's life.

If you could carry on watching for a few years you would realize it's not just one sneeze, but a sneezing fit.

This young star is firing off rapid releases of super-hot, super-fast gas, like multiple sneezes, before it finally exhausts itself.

These bursts of gas have shaped the turbulent surroundings, creating structures known as Herbig-Haro objects.

These objects are formed from the star's energetic "sneezes." Launched due to magnetic fields around the forming star, these energetic releases can contain as much mass as our home planet, and cannon into nearby clouds of gas at hundreds of kilometers/miles per second.

Shock waves form, such as the U-shape below this star. Unlike most other astronomical phenomena, as the waves crash outwards, they can be seen moving across human timescales of years.

Soon, this star will stop sneezing, and mature to become a star like our sun.

This region is actually home to several interesting objects. The star at the center of the frame is a variable star named V633 Cassiopeiae, with Herbig-Haro objects HH 161 and HH 164 forming parts of the horseshoe-shaped loop emanating from it.

The slightly shrouded star just to the left is known as V376 Cassiopeiae, another variable star that has succumbed to its neighbour's infectious sneezing fits; this star is also sneezing, creating yet another Herbig-Haro object—HH 162.

Both stars are very young and are still surrounded by dusty material left over from their formation, which spans the gap between the two.

NASA Juno probe captures movie of Earth-Moon Flyby

When NASA's Juno spacecraft flew past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, it received a boost in speed of more than 8,800 mph (about 7.3 kilometer per second), which set it on course for a July 4, 2016, rendezvous with Jupiter.

One of Juno's sensors, a special kind of camera optimized to track faint stars, also had a unique view of the Earth-moon system.

The result was an intriguing, low-resolution glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar.

The cameras that took the images for the movie are located near the pointed tip of one of the spacecraft's three solar-array arms.

They are part of Juno's Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) and are normally used to determine the orientation of the magnetic sensors.

These cameras look away from the sunlit side of the solar array, so as the spacecraft approached, the system's four cameras pointed toward Earth.

Earth and the moon came into view when Juno was about 600,000 miles (966,000 kilometers) away -- about three times the Earth-moon separation.

During the flyby, timing was everything. Juno was traveling about twice as fast as a typical satellite, and the spacecraft itself was spinning at 2 rpm.

To assemble a movie that wouldn't make viewers dizzy, the star tracker had to capture a frame each time the camera was facing Earth at exactly the right instant.

The frames were sent to Earth, where they were processed into video format.

The music accompaniment is an original score by Vangelis.

Scottish Astronomer captures meteor trail against Aurora Borealis

A display of the Northern Lights over the Highlands and Islands of Scotland has been lit up by a fireball meteor.

Images of the aurora borealis were captured in clear skies on Monday night, including along the west coast and in the Western Isles.

The Northern Lights are generated when particle streams from the sun collide with atoms high up in the atmosphere.

Byron Griffiths, who lives on the Isle of Lewis, took one shot of the fireball as it fell through the sky.

ESO APEX: ArTeMiS camera Captures Amazing Image of Cat's Paw Nebula

This image represents some of the first data collected by the ArTeMiS camera on the European Southern Observatory's APEX telescope. Image released Sept. 25, 2013.

Credit: ArTeMiS team/Ph. André, M. Hennemann, V. Revéret et al./ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

A new camera on a telescope in the Southern Hemisphere has captured a stunning image of the Cat's Paw Nebula, offering a colorful and detailed view of a star-forming region of the Milky Way.

Released by the European Southern Observatory, the new photo of the Cat's Paw Nebula located about 5,500 light-years from Earth is one of the first shots taken by ArTeMiS — a submillimeter-wavelength camera added to APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment in Chile. ESO officials also produced a video fly-through of the incredible Cat's Paw Nebula view using the new camera observations.

The new instrument is expected to help scientists create more detailed wide-field maps of the sky in a shorter amount of time, ESO officials said in an image description. But the installation of the new hardware was no cakewalk.



"The commissioning team that installed ArTeMiS had to battle against extreme weather conditions to complete the task," ESO officials wrote. "Very heavy snow on the Chajnantor Plateau had almost buried the APEX control building."

The staff had to use an improvised road in order to transport and install the instrument in its proper location.

The research team also battled the weather when it came time to observe using ArTeMiS. The light observed by the camera is absorbed by water vapor in Earth's atmosphere, according to ESO officials. Because of this, the scientists had to wait for dry weather before testing out the instrument.

Since its initial commissioning, researchers have used ArTeMiS for scientific projects including one that produced the new photo of the Cat's Paw Nebula.

"This new ArTeMiS image is significantly better than earlier APEX images of the same region," according to ESO officials.

The ArTeMiS cryostat installed in the APEX telescope on the Chajnantor Plateau in northern Chile. 

ArTeMiS is a new wide-field submillimetre-wavelength camera that will be a major addition to APEX’s suite of instruments and further increase the depth and detail that can be observed. 

Credit: ArTeMiS team/ESO

Since its initial commissioning, researchers have used ArTeMiS for scientific projects including one that produced the new photo of the Cat's Paw Nebula.

"This new ArTeMiS image is significantly better than earlier APEX images of the same region," according to ESO officials.

NASA SOHO: Capture an Earth directed coronal mass ejection (CME)

The SOHO LASCO C2 instrument captured this image of the Earth-directed CME. SOHO's coronographs are able to take images of the solar corona by blocking the light coming directly from the Sun with an occulter disk. 

The location of the actual sun is shown with an image taken by SDO. 

Credit: ESA & NASA/SOHO, SDO

On August 20, 2013 at 4:24 am EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon which can send billions of tons of particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later.

These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.

Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 570 miles per second, which is a fairly typical speed for CMEs.

Earth-directed CMEs can cause a space weather phenomenon called a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when they funnel energy into Earth's magnetic envelope, the magnetosphere, for an extended period of time.

The CME's magnetic fields peel back the outermost layers of Earth's fields changing their very shape. In the past, geomagnetic storms caused by CMEs of this strength have usually been mild.

Magnetic storms can degrade communication signals and cause unexpected electrical surges in power grids. They also can cause aurora.

The SOHO LASCO C3 instrument captured this coronographic image of the Earth-directed CME. 

The bright white object to the right is the planet Mercury. 

Credit: ESA & NASA/SOHO

Mars Curiosity Rover Captures 2 Mars Moons Together - NASA Video

A spectacular new video from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the Red Planet's two tiny moons eclipsing each other in an otherworldly skywatching first.

Curiosity snapped 41 images of the Mars moons in the night sky on Aug. 1, with rover scientists then stitching them together to make the final 30-second video. It is the first time a view of the two Martian satellites — called Phobos and Deimos — eclipsing each other has been captured from the vantage point of the planet's surface, NASA officials said.

The new Curiosity video has plenty of scientific value in addition to its gee-whiz appeal, officials said. For example, researchers are studying the images to refine their knowledge of the orbits of Phobos and Deimos, both of which appear to be captured asteroids.

Mark Lemmon

"The ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface, giving knowledge of the Martian interior," Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University said in a statement.

"We may also get data good enough to detect density variations within Phobos and to determine if Deimos' orbit is systematically changing," added Lemmon, who is a co-investigator for Curiosity's Mastcam instrument, which took the pictures using its telephoto lens.

Phobos' orbit is taking it closer to the surface of Mars very slowly, researchers said, while Deimos may gradually be getting farther and farther away from the planet.

Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide on average, while Deimos is even smaller. But Curiosity was able to spot both of them because they orbit quite close to the Red Planet's surface — 3,700 miles (6,000 km) in Phobos' case and 12,470 miles (20,070 km) for Deimos.

Earth's moon is gigantic compared to Phobos and Deimos, with a diameter of about 2,160 miles (3,475 km). But our planet's natural satellite orbits much farther away — its average distance is 239,000 miles (384,600 km) — so Phobos appears half as big in the sky to Curiosity as Earth's moon does to human skywatchers, NASA officials said.

This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth. 

Deimos, at far left, and Phobos, beside it, are shown together as they actually were photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Aug. 1, 2013.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.

NASA Telescope IRIS Snaps 1st Photos of Sun

A still image from the first movie captured by the IRIS solar observatory, 21 hours after mission controllers opened the telescope’s door.

Credit: NASA/IRIS

NASA's newest solar observatory has taken its first photos of the lowest layers of the solar atmosphere, a mysterious and little-understood region of the sun.

The images, taken just 21 hours after mission controllers first opened the telescope’s door, reveal new details of the sun’s lower atmosphere — an area known as the "interface region."

The IRIS spacecraft (short for Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) captured images of thin magnetic structures and streams of material in the solar atmosphere.

These early observations suggest tremendous amounts of energy flow through the interface region, according to NASA officials.

"With this grand opening of the telescope door and first observations from IRIS, we've opened a new window into the energetics of the sun's atmosphere," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "We look forward to the new insights IRIS will provide."

Inside the ESA Cupola: NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy captures the Earth

Inside the Cupola, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, an Expedition 36 flight engineer, uses a 400mm lens on a digital still camera to photograph a target of opportunity on Earth some 250 miles below him and the International Space Station. 

Cassidy has been aboard the orbital outpost since late March and will continue his stay into September. 

 Image Credit: NASA

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Captures Second Drilling

The Mars Science Lab drilled into a rock called 'Cumberland' on May 19th, 2013. The rover had a camera fixated on the task. Credit: NASA / NOAA

Hubble Telescope Captures huge explosion on Faraway Star, T Pyxidis

Double-star system T Pyxidis seen on Sept. 19, 2011.

CREDIT: NASA, ESA, A. Crotts, J. Sokoloski, and H. Uthas (Columbia University), and S. Lawrence (Hofstra University)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers a rare look at an enormous stellar eruption, allowing them to map out the aftermath of such blasts in unprecedented detail.

Hubble photographed an April 2011 explosion in the double-star system T Pyxidis (T Pyx for short), which goes off every 12 to 50 years.

The new images reveal that material ejected by previous T Pyx outbursts did not escape into space, instead sticking around to form a debris disk about 1 light-year wide around the system.

This information came as a surprise to the research team.

"We fully expected this to be a spherical shell," study co-author Arlin Crotts of Columbia University said in a statement.

"This observation shows it is a disk, and it is populated with fast-moving ejecta from previous outbursts."

Herschel captures image of NGC 6334 the Cat's Paw Nebula

In this false-colour image of NGC 6334, red represents the Herschel 70 micron IR image, green represents the IRAC 8 micron image and blue represents the NEWFIRM 1 micron J band. 

The region is about 70 light years wide.

CREDIT: S. Willis (CfA+ISU); ESA/Herschel; NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Spitzer; CTIO/NOAO/AURA/NSF.

A nebula that shines about 5,500 light-years from Earth could be going through a "baby boom," according to a new study.

NGC 6334 (the Cat's Paw Nebula) might be one of the most productive star-forming regions in the Milky Way.

The nebula is home to tens of thousands of newly formed stars and plays host to about 200,000 suns' worth of star-creating material.

"NGC 6334 is forming stars at a more rapid pace than Orion — so rapidly that it appears to be undergoing what might be called a burst of star formation," the study's lead author Sarah Willis of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and Iowa State University said in a statement.

"It might resemble a 'mini-starburst,' similar to a scaled-down version of the spectacular bursts sometimes seen in other galaxies."

More than 2,000 of the stars in the nebula are very young and are still trapped inside the "dusty cocoons" that birthed them, scientists said.

Willis presented the new findings here today (June 5) at the 222nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Astronomers have observed distant, bright starbursting galaxies before, but because the Cat's Paw Nebula is a region within the Milky Way, scientists can get a better sense of why starburst regions might form and what they look like closer-up.

"Because NGC 6334 is nearby, astronomers can probe it in much greater detail, even down to counting the numbers of individual stars of various types and ages," CfA officials wrote.

Astronomers are still trying to investigate the origin of the starburst. Some researchers think that a blast from a supernova explosion or galactic collisions could create starbursts; however, neither of those explanations appear to explain the Cat's Paw Nebula's recent activity.

Scientists expect that the starburst will last for a relatively short amount of time in cosmic terms. In total, NGC 6334's burst will probably endure for only a few million years.

"We’re lucky, not only because it’s nearby but also because we’re catching it while the starburst is happening," Willis said.