ESA Earth Observation Image: JAXA ALOS satellite views Helsinki

This image acquired by Japan’s ALOS satellite on 28 June 2009 shows Finland’s capital and largest city, Helsinki (upper right), on the shores of the Gulf of Finland.

The gulf is the eastern arm of the Baltic sea, stretching all the way to St Petersburg in Russia.

The waters are relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 38 m and maximum depth of about 100 m.

During winter, usually in January, the waters freeze and stay frozen until about April.

Satellites play an important role during this season for shipping, providing imagery that helps icebreaker boats navigate through these frozen waters.

Situated on the tip of a peninsula and on more than 300 islands, Helsinki is sparsely populated compared to other European capitals and has many green areas.

Running north to south through the centre of the city is a 10 km-long forested park that offers opportunities for outdoor sports and activities to Helsinki’s residents.

This year, the park celebrates its 100-year anniversary, marked by various activities including nature walks, a photo competition and other events.

North of the city we can see the runways of the Helsinki airport, while farther west, the large, dark green area of Nuuksio National Park is evident.

The image is featured on the Earth from Space video programme.

SOHO views X-class solar flare

The Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) resulting from the big X-class solar flare on 10 June 2014 as seen through the LASCO C2 instrument of the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

LASCO (Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph) is able to take images of the solar corona by blocking the light coming directly from the Sun with an occulter disk, creating an artificial eclipse within the instrument itself.

SOHO is a project of international collaboration between ESA and NASA to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind. More about SOHO:

Credits: SOHO (ESA & NASA)

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.

Hubble Views Stellar Genesis in the Southern Pinwheel M83

This Hubble mosaic of the spiral galaxy M83 or Southern Pinwheel, lies 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra. 

It contains thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and "ghosts" of dead stars called supernova remnants. 

Image courtesy NASA, ESA/HHT/STScI/AURA/W.Blair, JHU/R.O'Connell, UV.

A photogenic and favourite target for amateur astronomers, the full beauty of nearby barred spiral galaxy M83 is unveiled in all of its glory in this Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image.

The vibrant magentas and blues reveal the galaxy is ablaze with star formation.

The galaxy, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, lies 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.

The Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and "ghosts" of dead stars called supernova remnants.

The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death spread across 50,000 of light years.

The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark spiral dust lanes.

These brilliant young stellar groupings, only a few million years old, produce huge amounts of ultraviolet light that is absorbed by surrounding diffuse gas clouds, causing them to glow in pinkish hydrogen light.

Gradually, the fierce stellar winds from the youngest, most massive stars blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters and giving a "Swiss Cheese" appearance to the spiral arms.

These youngest star clusters are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The populations of stars up to 100 million years or older appear yellow or orange by comparison because the young blue stars have already burned out.

Interstellar "bubbles" produced by nearly 300 supernovas from massive stars have been found in this Hubble image.

By studying these supernova remnants, astronomers can better understand the nature of the stars that exploded and dispersed nuclear processed chemical elements back into the galaxy, contributing to the next generation of new stars.

ESA Proba-2 views hybrid Solar eclipse - Video

Three partial solar eclipses are seen in this movie from ESA's Proba-2 Sun-watching satellite as it dipped in and out of the Moon's shadow during yesterday's 'hybrid' solar eclipse.

A hybrid eclipse comprises a total solar eclipse and an 'annular eclipse', depending on an observer's viewing location on Earth.

During a total solar eclipse, the Moon moves in front of the Sun as seen from Earth, their alignment and separation such that the much closer Moon appears large enough to block out the light from the much more distant Sun.

But from some locations, the apparent size of the Moon is slightly smaller than that of the Sun, leaving a bright ring around the dark disc of the Moon.

Meanwhile, from its vantage point in Earth orbit, Proba-2 saw several partial eclipses.

Proba-2 orbits Earth about 14.5 times per day, dipping in and out of the Moon's shadow around the time of a solar eclipse.

The video was produced from images taken by Proba-2's SWAP imager, which snaps the Sun in ultraviolet light.

Stormy active regions on the Sun's face are revealed, including sunspots, the roots of some large solar flares and 'coronal mass ejections' that are occasionally directed towards Earth.

Chandra views NGC 6240: Colossal hot cloud envelopes colliding galaxies

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/E. Nardini et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

Scientists have used Chandra to make a detailed study of an enormous cloud of hot gas enveloping two large, colliding galaxies.

This unusually large reservoir of gas contains as much mass as 10 billion Suns, spans about 300,000 light years, and radiates at a temperature of more than 7 million degrees.

This giant gas cloud, which scientists call a "halo," is located in the system called NGC 6240.

Astronomers have long known that NGC 6240 is the site of the merger of two large spiral galaxies similar in size to our own Milky Way.

Each galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its center. The black holes are spiraling toward one another, and may eventually merge to form a larger black hole.

Another consequence of the collision between the galaxies is that the gas contained in each individual galaxy has been violently stirred up.

This caused a baby boom of new stars that has lasted for at least 200 million years. During this burst of stellar birth, some of the most massive stars raced through their evolution and exploded relatively quickly as supernovas.

The scientists involved with this study argue that this rush of supernova explosions dispersed relatively high amounts of important elements such as oxygen, neon, magnesium, and silicon into the hot gas of the newly combined galaxies.

According to the researchers, the data suggest that this enriched gas has slowly expanded into and mixed with cooler gas that was already there.

Results are printed in Astrophysical Journal

More information: arxiv.org/abs/1301.5907

Street View App: Mars' Surface Taken from Rover Opportunity

A new app that provides stunning images of the Martian surface taken by a NASA rover currently exploring the planet has been released for iPhone and Android devices.

The free Mars Images app – created by computer scientist Mark Powell of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – allows users to browse archived and new pictures taken from The Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover, which has been on Mars since 2004.

The rover has been snapping pictures of the surface and making big discoveries, such as finding evidence that water was once on the planet, since its arrival.

NASA plans to add images to the archive of Opportunity’s sister rover, The Spirit. Both Spirit and Opportunity were put on Mars in January 2004 to conduct a 90-day mission of exploration, but the rovers stayed well past their mission time.

Although the Spirit’s mission ended in mid-2011, Opportunity continues to explore Mars’s surface today.

The six-wheeled vehicles – which are controlled by NASA employees on Earth – feature various cameras to take images of Mars and its surface, such as navigation, panoramic, hazard-avoidance and microscopic imaging cameras to take pictures of small rocks.

The app will also send pictures to directly to mobile devices once new ones become available.

Image courtesy of NASA via Powellware.com

New Views From Telescope Orbiting Mars

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

At the centre of this view of an area of mid-latitude northern Mars, a fresh crater about 6 meters (20 feet) in diameter holds an exposure of bright material, blue in this false-color image.

The latest set of new images from the telescopic High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter offers detailed views of diverse Martian landscapes.

Features as small as desks are revealed in the 314 observations made between June 6 and July 7, 2010, now available on the camera team's site and NASA's Planetary Data System.

The camera is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars in 2006.

ESO VISTA Views The Sculptor Galaxy NGC253

VISTA Views The Sculptor Galaxy


NGC 253 is one of the closest galaxies to our own. It is a bright spiral that lies about 13 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Sculptor and is noted for being a starburst galaxy with very vigorous star formation and very dusty spiral arms.

In the infrared, the rich dust clouds in the galaxy's spiral arms become nearly transparent and a whole host of cool red stars that are otherwise invisible can be seen.

The VISTA infrared images were taken through Y, Z, J, Ks and narrowband filters. The field of view is about 38 by 25 arcminutes. Credit: ESO/J.Emerson/VISTA. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

A spectacular new image of the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) has been taken with the ESO VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile as part of one of its first major observational campaigns.

By observing in infrared light VISTA's view is less affected by dust and reveals a myriad of cooler stars as well as a prominent bar of stars across the central region. The VISTA image provides much new information on the history and development of the galaxy.

The Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) lies in the constellation of the same name and is one of the brightest galaxies in the sky. It is prominent enough to be seen with good binoculars and was discovered by Caroline Herschel from England in 1783.

NGC 253 is a spiral galaxy that lies about 13 million light-years away. It is the brightest member of a small collection of galaxies called the Sculptor Group, one of the closest such groupings to our own Local Group of galaxies. Part of its visual prominence comes from its status as a starburst galaxy, one in the throes of rapid star formation.

NGC 253 is also very dusty, which obscures the view of many parts of the galaxy (eso0902). Seen from Earth, the galaxy is almost edge on, with the spiral arms clearly visible in the outer parts, along with a bright core at its centre.

VISTA, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, the latest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is the world's largest survey telescope. After being handed over to ESO at the end of 2009 (eso0949) the telescope was used for two detailed studies of small sections of the sky before it embarked on the much larger surveys that are now in progress.

One of these "mini surveys" was a detailed study of NGC 253 and its environment.

NASA Cassini views water on Saturn's Enceladus

There seems little doubt that Saturn's moon Enceladus hides a large body of liquid water beneath its icy skin.

The Cassini probe, which periodically sweeps past the little moon, has returned yet more data to back up the idea of a sub-surface sea.

This time, it is the detection of negatively charged water molecules in the atmosphere of Enceladus.

On Earth, such ions are often seen where liquid water is in motion, such as waterfalls or crashing ocean waves.

There are no "rollers" on the moon but it does have a very active region near its south pole where water vapour and ice particles shoot through cracks in the surface and rise high into the Enceladian sky.

"We see water molecules that have additional electrons added," explained Andrew Coates from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

"There are two ways they could be added - from the ambient plasma environment, or it could be to do with friction as these water clusters come out of the jets, like rubbing a balloon and sticking it on the ceiling,"

• Enceladus experiences tidal contortions as it orbits its parent planet
• This energy is producing a "hotspot" at the satellite's southern pole
• Big cracks (L) are 100 degrees warmer than the surrounding ice surface
• These so called tiger stripes are the source of immense plumes (R)

Caps found not just the negatively charged water ions but hints of negatively charged hydrocarbons, too. Positively charged hydrocarbons at Enceladus have already been identified by Cassini's Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS).

Where Caps has definitely seen negatively charged hydrocarbons is at Saturn's largest moon, Titan. There, it found colossal ions, some measuring more than 13,000 amu (an amu is roughly the mass of a single hydrogen atom).

"If you have a methane and nitrogen atmosphere and you bombard it with particles from the Saturn's magnetosphere and ultraviolet light from the Sun, you can cook up really large molecules," explained Dr Coates.

"They get bigger as the altitude decreases. They are the source of Titan's haze and also maybe the source of the dunes on the surface as they rain down."

Cassini is a joint venture between the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

NASA TV: video showing six solid rocket booster camera views of launch