ESA Rosetta Probe Snaps Spectacular Comet 67/P Close-Ups

Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has returned some of the most detailed images yet of the comet it caught last month after a decade-long chase through deep space.

Rosetta snapped the four new comet photos, which mission scientists stitched into a single mosaic, on Sept. 19, at a distance of 17.7 miles (28.6 kilometers) from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The mosaic shows ridges on 67P's "neck" and many cliffs and boulders scattered across the comet's surface. Some of the photos overlap, so the same comet features can be seen in multiple images.

Rosetta spacecraft obtained this four-image NAVCAM mosaic of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with images taken on Sept. 19, 2014, when it was 18 miles (28.6 km) from the comet. 

Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Rosetta launched in March 2004 and finally caught up to 67P on Aug. 6 of this year, thus becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit a comet.

The probe has been taking photos and measurements of 67P ever since, allowing astronomers to construct the first map of the 2.5-mile-long (4 km) celestial object.

European Space Agency (ESA) researchers used a program called Microsoft ICE to stitch the four new Rosetta photos together.

A few areas on the left needed exposure adjustments, and the whole image's contrast was enhanced a little, ESA officials said.

Astronomers in Ukraine first spotted Comet 67P, which completes one lap around the sun every 6.5 years, in 1969.

The object is unusually dark for a comet, most of which are reflective and covered in ice; so far, astronomers haven't spotted any ice patches on 67P

Rosetta spacecraft produced this four-image montage of comet 67P/C-G, with images taken on Sept. 19, 2014. 

Black borders separate the images, and there is some overlap. 

 Credit: SA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Achieving orbit around 67P was a cosmic first, and the Rosetta team plans to make some more history soon.

The mission plan calls for Rosetta to drop a lander called Philae down onto the comet on Nov. 11.

Philae will land on the smaller of 67P's two lobes to study the comet's surface and analyze its composition and atmosphere.

Philae also has a drill, which it will use to take samples.

ESA officials expect that Rosetta will fly with and study the comet until December 2015. They hope the mission provides insight into how comets change as they approach the sun.

Spectacular Aurora Borealis captured by ISS Astronauts

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman captured this view from the International Space Station on Aug. 19, 2014.

Credit: NASA

The northern lights illuminated the night sky near the Arctic Circle earlier this week in a stunning display that could even be appreciated by astronauts living on the International Space Station.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this," NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman wrote in a Twitter post Tuesday evening (Aug. 19) alongside a photo of the amazing green auroras.

Reid Wiseman, who is a flight engineer, and perhaps Expedition 40's most prolific shutterbug, took pictures of the spectacle as the space station flew past North America around 7:30 p.m. EDT.

Wiseman is not the first to capture images of the Aurora Borealis from the ISS, with film-maker Randy Smith creating a time-lapse film of the light show from aboard the ISS in 2012

Spectacular Type la supernova's mysteries revealed

Galaxy M82 in which the supernova exploded. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, & Hubble Heritage

New research by a team of UK and European-based astronomers is helping to solve the mystery of what caused a spectacular supernova in a galaxy 11 million light years away, seen earlier this year.

The supernova, a giant explosion of a star and the closest one to the Earth in decades, was discovered earlier this year by chance at the University of London Observatory.

These phenomena are extremely important to study because they provide key information about our universe, including how it is expanding and how galaxies evolve.

The new research into its cause, published in the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal, used vast networks of radio telescopes in the UK and across Europe including the seven telescopes of e-MERLIN operated from The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory.

These enabled them to obtain extremely deep images revealing a lack of radio emission from the supernova.

Known as 2014J, this was a Type la supernova caused by the explosion of a white dwarf star, the inner core of star once it has run out of nuclear fuel and ejected its outer layers.

A white dwarf star can explode if its mass increases to about 1.4x times that of the Sun. At this point its core temperature reaches the point where carbon starts to undergo nuclear fusion.

This spreads rapidly through the star resulting in a catastrophic thermonuclear explosion which rips the star apart, causing it to appear like a brilliant 'new star' shining billions of times brighter than the Sun.

For decades there has been a dispute about how this happens but these new results rule out the vast majority of models and show the merger of two white dwarf stars is by far the most likely cause.

The research was led by Miguel Pérez-Torres, researcher of the Spanish National Research Council who explained: "Supernovae play a fundamental role in the chemistry of galaxies and their evolution, as they are responsible for ejecting most of the heavy elements we see around us, including elements that cannot be formed in the interior of normal stars."

"A Nobel Prize was awarded in 2011 for the use of Type Ia supernovae to discover that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Yet, the basic question of what causes a Type Ia supernova was still a mystery".

Rob Beswick, a co-author of the research paper from the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics added: "The explosion of a Type Ia supernova is a rare event in the nearby Universe."

"Supernova 2014J is the closest Type Ia supernova to Earth since 1986, and it's likely that more than a hundred years will pass until we see another such supernova so close to us."

"This was an amazing opportunity to learn more about these extremely important astrophysical phenomena and their underlying cause."

More information: "Constraints on the progenitor system and the environs of SN 2014J from deep radio observations" By M. A. Perez-Torres, P. Lundqvist, R. J. Beswick, C. I. Bjornsson, T. W. B. Muxlow, Z. Paragi, S. Ryder, A. Alberdi, C. Fransson, J. M. Marcaide, I. Marti-Vidal, E. Ros, M. K. Argo, J. C. Guirado are published in The Astrophysical Journal. iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/792/1

ESO LaSilla Observatory Captures A spectacular landscape of star formation

This mosaic of images from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. 

The first of these, on the left, is dominated by the star cluster NGC 3603, located about 20 000 light-years away, in the Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. 

The second object, on the right, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576 that lies only about half as far from Earth. 

Credit: ESO/G. Beccari

This image, captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows two dramatic star formation regions in the Milky Way.

The first, on the left, is dominated by the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20 000 light-years away, in the Carina-Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way.

The second, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576 that lies about half as far from Earth.

NGC 3603 is a very bright star cluster and is famed for having the highest concentration of massive stars that have been discovered in our galaxy so far.

At the centre lies a Wolf–Rayet multiple star system, known as HD 97950. Wolf–Rayet stars are at an advanced stage of stellar evolution, and start off with around 20 times the mass of the Sun.

But, despite this large mass, Wolf–Rayet stars shed a considerable amount of their matter due to intense stellar winds, which blast the star's surface material off into space at several million kilometres per hour, a crash diet of cosmic proportions.

NGC 3603 is in an area of very active star formation. Stars are born in dark and dusty regions of space, largely hidden from view.

But as the very young stars gradually start to shine and clear away their surrounding cocoons of material they become visible and create glowing clouds in the surrounding material, known as HII regions.

HII regions shine because of the interaction of ultraviolet radiation given off by the brilliant hot young stars with the hydrogen gas clouds.

HII regions can measure several hundred light-years in diameter, and the one surrounding NGC 3603 has the distinction of being the most massive in our galaxy.

The cluster was first observed by John Herschel on 14 March 1834 during his three-year expedition to systematically survey the southern skies from near Cape Town.

He described it as a remarkable object and thought that it might be a globular star cluster. Future studies showed that it is not an old globular, but a young open cluster, one of the richest known.

This zoom sequence takes the viewer deep into the spectacular southern Milky Way in the constellation of Carina (The Keel). 

We see two regions where stars are forming, the very rich cluster NGC 3603 and its surroundings and the strange glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576. 

The final detailed views come from images taken with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. 

Credit: ESO/G. Beccari/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: movetwo 

NGC 3576, on the right of the image, also lies in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way, but it is located only about 9000 light-years from Earth, much closer than NGC 3603, but appearing next to it in the sky. NGC 3576 is notable for two huge curved objects resembling the curled horns of a ram.

These odd filaments are the result of stellar winds from the hot, young stars within the central regions of the nebula, which have blown the dust and gas outwards across a hundred light-years.

Two dark silhouetted areas known as Bok globules are also visible in this vast complex of nebulae. These black clouds near the top of the nebula also offer potential sites for the future formation of new stars.

NGC 3576 was also discovered by John Herschel in 1834, making it a particularly productive and visually rewarding year for the English astronomer.

Galaxy's Huge Black Hole Puts on Spectacular Fireworks Show - Video

The supermassive black hole at the center of a far-off galaxy is putting on a fireworks display of cosmic proportions.

Scientists captured the brilliant display in new images and a video tour of the spiral galaxy Messier 106 (also called NGC 4258).

NSF Karl Janksy Very Large Array

An amazing composite picture was created by combining data from three NASA telescopes and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Karl Janksy Very Large Array trained on Messier 106, which is about 23 million light-years away.

While the galaxy is spiral in shape, like the Milky Way, Messier 106 has two extra swirling arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light.

These features are called anomalous arms and intersect the galaxy at an angle instead of aligning with the main galactic disk.

The combination of data from multiple telescopes revealed that the swirling arms of Messier 106 are streams of shock waves and superheated gas.

The NSF telescope picked up radio waves from high-energy particles streaming from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Infrared light data gathered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that these bursts of particles create shock waves, similar to sonic booms, when they strike the main disk of the galaxy.

The shock waves heat up huge pockets of hydrogen gas to thousands of degrees.

Spiral Galaxy Messier 106

Spiral Galaxy Messier 106 has two extra swirling arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. 

Credit: X-ray: NASA /CXC /Caltech /P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA /STScI; IR: NASA /JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF /NRAO /VLA

The new composite image released by NASA earlier this month shows X-rays seen by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory in blue; radio waves captured by the NSF's Karl Janksy Very Large Array are shown in purple; visible light data from the Hubble telescope can be seen in yellow and blue; and infrared light from the Spitzer telescope in red.

Chandra X-Ray images reveal huge, superheated gas bubbles above and below the plane of the galaxy.

This suggests that much of the gas inside the galaxy is heated to millions of degrees and then rides along the shock waves streaming from the black hole to the outer regions of the galaxy.

Researchers predict all the gas from the galaxy will be cast out within the next 300 million years unless it is somehow replenished. Since most of the gas is already gone, less gas is available for star formation.

Researchers using Spitzer estimate that stars are forming in Messier 106 almost 10 times more slowly than they are in the Milky Way.

The black hole at the center of Messier 106 is about 10 times larger than the black hole in the Milky Way and is sucking in material much more quickly.

Researchers hope to learn more about how the black hole is influencing the galaxy. The results of the new galaxy study were published June 20 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

ESA Herschel: key to discovery of spectacular gravitational lens

An irregular ring of radiation can be seen around the distant galaxy in the center of this 2.2-micron CCD photograph, made with the 10-meter Keck telescope on Hawaii. 

The lensing galaxy is associated with radio source 3C 220.3. 

The radiation of the ring originates from an extremely distant galaxy-in-formation and is a result of the gravitational-lens effect. 

Just below the lensing galaxy a neighboring galaxy can be seen, which also contributes to the lensing effects. 

Credit: ESA and the W. M. Keck Observatory.

An international team of astronomers including Dutch astronomers Peter Barthel and Léon Koopmans (University of Groningen) reports the discovery of a unique case of a cosmic gravitational lens.

Using several telescopes on the ground and in space, the scientists show that a distant radio galaxy, acting as a cosmic lens, distorts and magnifies the radiation of an even more distant mysterious dark object, thereby making that object visible.

Owing to the lens magnification, the faint background object becomes visible as a ring-like structure around the lensing foreground radio galaxy, seen well on an image made with one of the two 10-meter Keck telescopes on Hawaii.

Led by Martin Haas of Bochum University, Germany, the research started as rather simple observations with the Herschel Space Telescope of a sample of distant radio galaxies.

It rapidly grew into a project where crucial supplementary observations demonstrated the unique character of this cosmic lens.

While formally the Herschel Space Observatory did not discover this gravitational lens, it was the breakthrough Herschel performance that allowed the astronomers to measure the far-infrared emission of 3C 220.3, which in turn made them suspicious about its origin.

The original target, the very massive radio galaxy, emitted simply too much far-infrared radiation. Additional observations, with optical and radio telescopes, subsequently demonstrated unambiguously the cosmic lens effect of the radio galaxy making the dark background object visible in the far-infrared.

Astronomers have known of the cosmic gravitational lens phenomenon since 1979, although the light bending of distant stars by the Sun was already observed in 1919.

Calculations by Einstein in 1912 already predicted the existence of such cosmic lenses.

Gravitational lenses allow astronomers to investigate the properties of both the very distant lens and the even more distant object, a galaxy in the process of formation.

Modeling of the geometry of the lensing situation for instance demonstrated that the lensing galaxy which hosts the radio source contains an unexpectedly low fraction of mysterious dark matter compared with that predicted for large radio galaxies.

More information: 3C 220.3: A Radiogalaxy Lensing a Submillimeter Galaxy" by an international group of 20* astronomers led by Martin Haas (Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany) is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/1406.2872

Blood Moon Photos: Spectacular Total Lunar Eclipse Views - Video

Stargazers across the United States were awed by last night's total eclipse of the moon, and they've got some amazing photos to prove it.

Observers in a North America, South America, Hawaii and parts of Alaska got a spectacular show as the moon turned blood red during the first total lunar eclipse of 2014.

While the weather wasn't great for everyone in the path of the total eclipse, some stargazers got a break from the clouds to capture the celestial sight during the 3.5 hours it was visible.

"We lucked out on the weather, as skies were mostly cloudy during the afternoon and evening, and even during the eclipse we were viewing through a thin layer of cirrus much of the time," veteran rocket launch photographer Ben Cooper told reporters of his Florida eclipse-viewing experience.

While Cooper may have seen the eclipse through clouds, his mosaic photo is a standout. It features a blood red moon in the center of the image framed by the various stages of the lunar eclipse.

Photographer Sean Parker of Tucson, Ariz., created this mosaic of the total lunar eclipse phases on April 15, 2014 using images taken with a through a 12" LX Meade 200 telescope with a Canon 6D camera.

NASA Curiosity rover captures spectacular Mount Sharp from Junda rocks

Martian landscape scene with rows of striated rocks in the foreground and spectacular Mount Sharp on the horizon. 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover paused mid drive at the Junda outcrop to snap the component images for this coloured navcam camera photomosaic on Sol 548 (Feb. 19, 2014) and then continued traveling southwards towards mountain base. 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover's UHF Antenna are visoble on the very right of the picture. 

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer

Like any good tourist, NASA's rover Curiosity apparently couldn't resist the photobug urge from a gorgeous Martian mountain scene she happened by recently and decided to pull over and enjoy the view.

So she stopped the dune buggy mid-drive on the sandy road to her daily destination one Sol last week on Feb. 19, powered up the camera suite and excitedly snapped a spectacular landscape view of a striated rock field dramatically back dropped by towering Mount Sharp on the horizon.

The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals.

And just for good measure, Curiosity also snapped a series of breathtaking look back photos showing her tracks in the dune filled terrain from whence she came since straddling through the Dingo Gap gateway.

The panoramic mountain view taken on Sol 548 shows rows of striated rocks all oriented in a similar direction in the foreground with Mount Sharp in the background.

Scientists directed Curiosity to drive by the rock rows nicknamed "Junda" after their interest was piqued by orbital images taken by the powerful telescopic camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling overhead.

The six wheeled rover paused during the planned Feb. 19 drive of 328 feet (100 meters) to capture the imagery.

She then pushed forward to finish the day's drive and snapped another fabulous look back view – see our mosaic below.

And the next day on Feb. 20 (Sol 549), she also completed her second 100 meter drive in reverse.

Her handlers are occasionally commanding Curiosity to drive backwards in a newly tested bid to minimize serious damage to the six 20 inch diameter wheels in the form of rips and tears caused by rough edged Red Planet rocks.

Hubble Image: RS Puppis puts on a spectacular light show

This Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. 

As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods — RS Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 or so days. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) - Hubble /Europe Collaboration Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Penn State University)

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed the variable star RS Puppis over a period of five weeks, showing the star growing brighter and dimmer as it pulsates.

These pulsations have created a stunning example of a phenomenon known as a light echo, where light appears to reverberate through the murky environment around the star.

For most of its life, a star is pretty stable, slowly consuming the fuel at its core to keep it shining brightly.

However, once most of the hydrogen that stars use as fuel has been consumed, some stars evolve into very different beasts—pulsating stars.

They become unstable, expanding and shrinking over a number of days or weeks and growing brighter and dimmer as they do so.

A new and spectacular Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. As variable stars go, Cepheids have comparatively long periods.

RS Puppis, for example, varies in brightness by almost a factor of five every 40 or so days.

RS Puppis is unusual as it is shrouded by a nebula—thick, dark clouds of gas and dust.

Hubble observed this star and its murky environment over a period of five weeks in 2010, capturing snapshots at different stages in its cycle and enabling scientists to create a time-lapse video of this ethereal object.

The apparent motion shown in these Hubble observations is an example of a phenomenon known as a light echo. The dusty environment around RS Puppis enables this effect to be shown with stunning clarity.

As the star expands and brightens, we see some of the light after it is reflected from progressively more distant shells of dust and gas surrounding the star, creating the illusion of gas moving outwards.

This reflected light has further to travel, and so arrives at the Earth after light that travels straight from star to telescope.

This is analogous to sound bouncing off surrounding objects, causing the listener to hear an audible echo. In 2008, astronomers used the light echo around RS Puppis to measure its distance from us, obtaining the most accurate measurement of a Cepheid's distance.

While this effect is certainly striking in itself, there is another important scientific reason to observe Cepheids like RS Puppis.

The period of their pulsations is known to be directly connected to their intrinsic brightness, a property that allows astronomers to use them as cosmic distance markers.

This helps us to measure and understand the vast scale of the Universe.

ESO Wide Field Imager Image: Young stars paint spectacular stellar landscape

The Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured the best image so far of the star cluster NGC 3572, a gathering of young stars, and its spectacular surroundings. 

This new image shows how the clouds of gas and dust around the cluster have been sculpted into whimsical bubbles, arcs and the odd features known as elephant trunks by the stellar winds flowing from the bright stars. 

The brightest of these cluster stars are heavier than the Sun and will end their short lives as supernova explosions. 

Credit: ESO/G. Beccari

Astronomers at ESO have captured the best image so far of the clouds around the star cluster NGC 3572.

This image shows how these clouds of gas and dust have been sculpted into bubbles, arcs and the odd features known as elephant trunks by the stellar winds flowing from this gathering of hot stars.

The brightest of these cluster stars are much heavier than the Sun and will end their short lives as supernova explosions.

Most stars do not form alone, but with many siblings that are created at about the same time from a single cloud of gas and dust. NGC 3572, in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel), is one of these clusters.

It contains many hot young blue-white stars that shine brightly and generate powerful stellar winds that tend to gradually disperse the remaining gas and dust from their surroundings.

The glowing gas clouds and accompanying cluster of stars are the subjects of a new picture from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

In the lower part of the image a big chunk of the molecular cloud that gave birth to these stellar youngsters still can be seen.

It has been dramatically affected by the powerful radiation coming from its smoldering offspring.

The radiation not only makes it glow with a characteristic hue, but also sculpts the clouds into amazingly convoluted shapes, including bubbles, arcs and the dark columns that astronomers call elephant trunks.

A strange feature captured in this image is the tiny ring-like nebula located slightly above the centre of the image.

Astronomers still are a little uncertain about the origin of this curious feature. It is probably a dense leftover from the molecular cloud that formed the cluster, perhaps a bubble created around a very bright hot star.

But some authors have considered that it may be some kind of oddly shaped planetary nebula—the remnants of a dying star.

NGC 1977: 'Running Man' - Spectacular Nebula Photo

Bernard Miller took this photo of NGC 1977, the Running Man Nebula, Nov. 12, 2012

The Running Man Nebula sprints into focus in this beautiful night sky photo.

Astrophotographer Bernard Miller captured the image between Nov. 12, 2012 and Feb. 4, 2013, from Rancho Hidalgo, N.M.

This reflection nebula, also known as NGC 1977, is located in the constellation of Orion about 1,500 light years from Earth.

A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). A reflection nebula doesn't emit any visible light on its own; instead it's illuminated by light from nearby stars.

Miller used a TEC-140 (F7) telescope, an AP900 GTO mount and a SBIG ST-8300M camera to take the photos for this image.

ESA ESO APEX Telescope Reveals Spectacular 'Fiery Ribbon' in Orion Nebula

This dramatic new image of cosmic clouds in the constellation of Orion reveals what seems to be a fiery ribbon in the sky. 

The orange glow represents faint light coming from grains of cold interstellar dust, at wavelengths too long for human eyes to see. 

CREDIT: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

APEX telescope in Chile has captured stunning new photos of a cosmic ribbon shimmering in the Orion nebula more than 1,000 light-years from Earth.

The new images — released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (May 15) — show what scientists described as a "fiery ribbon" of red gas and dust shining in the constellation Orion's belt.

The ribbon is a small part of a huge star-forming region of the universe.

ESO scientists used the APEX telescope in Chile to craft a video tour of the clouds of dust that combine to create new stars.

"The large bright cloud in the upper right of the image is the well-known Orion Nebula, also called Messier 42," ESO officials wrote in a news release.

"It is readily visible to the naked eye as the slightly fuzzy middle 'star' in the sword of Orion. The Orion Nebula is the brightest part of a huge stellar nursery where new stars are being born, and is the closest site of massive star formation to Earth."



Although the clouds of dust and gas in the red-tinted image might look as if they're burning hot, they are actually freezing cold.

ESO's APEX telescope in Chile took the photo in wavelengths invisible to the human eye. In this image, the hottest object glow blue while the coolest have an orange tint.

NASA SDO Captures Spectacular Solar Eruption (CME) - Video

An intense solar storm erupted from the sun on Friday (May 3) in a dazzling space weather display captured by a NASA's resident SDO spacecraft.

The solar flare erupted from the edge the sun, with NASA's powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) snapping photos of the sun storm.

The solar flare peaked at 1:32 p.m. EDT (1732 GMT), registering as a relatively medium-strength M5.7-class event.

Friday's solar storm was the second major space weather event in three days, but was not aimed at Earth.

The solar storm launched super-hot solar plasma about 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) above the surface of the sun before it faded from view.

The sun fired off a May Day solar eruption on Wednesday (May 1) from the same region, which is currently at the very leftmost edge (or limb) of the sun as seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The active region will be rotating to face Earth soon, mission scientists said.

"Increased number of flares are quite common at the moment, as the sun's normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in late 2013," NASA officials said in a statement.

The strongest solar flare of the year occurred on April 11 and registered as an M6.5-class sun storm, still a mid-level event. Scientists classify solar flares based on their intensity.

M-class solar flares are medium-strength events that are the weakest type of storm that can still have an impact on Earth. When aimed directly at Earth, they can super-charge the planet's aurora displays.

Themis on MARS Odyssey captures spectacular Mars map ever

A camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever.

Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet.

The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey. Researchers at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have been compiling the map since THEMIS observations began eight years ago.

The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic. Users can pan around images and zoom into them.

At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 100 meters (330 feet) wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.

The new map is available at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/maps/?layer=thm_dayir_100m_v11.

Hubble Bubble: Spectacular Space Bubble Photograph

Spectacular Space Bubble Photographed by Hubble

A spectacular new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a stunning space bubble filled with baby stars.

The new space bubble image highlights an area called N11 – a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This energetic star-forming region is the second largest known to date, and one of the most active in our galactic neighbour.

Bubbles in space

The Large Magellanic Cloud contains many bright nebula bubbles, though N11 is one of the most magnificent, Hubble officials said.

Astronomers took the new N11 photo using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, which was repaired in May 2009 during NASA's last service call to the iconic space telescope. The image is actually a mosaic of five different views observed by Hubble, researchers said.

Officially known as LHA 120-N 11, N11 is one of many nebulas catalogued in 1956 by American astronomer Karl Henize, who later became a NASA astronaut. The object's characteristic shape earned it a nickname as the "Bean Nebula."

N11's billowing pink clouds of glowing gas and the dramatic and colorful features visible in the burgeoning nebula are telltale signs of star-formation. The nebula is a well-studied patch of space that is spread across more than 1,000 light-years and has produced some of the most massive stars currently known.

That star-formation bonanza actually holds the key to the N11 nebula's gossamer bubble look.

Three successive generations of stars, each forming further away from N11's center than the last, have created shells of gas and dust that were later blown away from their parent stars. This created the dazzling ring shapes that are so prominent in the Hubble image.