Portal:Astronomy/Picture/May 2005

1 May 2005 (edit )

2 May 2005 (edit )

The Earth rises over the lunar horizon, as seen from lunar orbit during the Apollo 10 mission in 1969. Credit:NASA

Red H II regions dot the arms of the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral galaxy about 30 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team.

3 May 2005 (edit )

4 May 2005 (edit )

X-ray emission (purple) fills the inner shell of the Cat's Eye Nebula, a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco, as shown by this composite X-ray and optical image. (X-ray: NASA/UIUC/Y.Chu et al., Optical: NASA/HST)

The Great Comet of 1882, photographed by Her Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape, David Gill, in one of the earliest successful attempts at astrophotography.

5 May 2005 (edit )

6 May 2005 (edit )

The Sombrero Galaxy is a spiral galaxy with an unusually pronounced galactic bulge. It lies about 60 million light years away, and is receding from the Local Group at about 1000 km/s. Credit:NASA/Hubble Heritage Team

The Eagle Nebula is a large star-forming H II region 7,000 light years away. These 'fingers' of dense gas and dust contain very young stars, which will eventually drive away the dust via radiation pressure. Credit: NASA, Jeff Hester, and Paul Scowen

7 May 2005 (edit )

8 May 2005 (edit )

The collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994 was the first time astronomers had ever observed a collision between two solar system objects. The impact of the cometary fragments created giant dark spots the size of the Earth on the planet's surface, which persisted for up to a year before fading away. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team/NASA

Hoag's Object is a ring galaxy, consisting of a symmetrical ring of young, hot blue stars surrounding a central nucleus of older yellow stars. The cause of its structure is not known: some galaxies of this time are formed by galactic collisions, but there seem to be no nearby candidates for the galaxy which collided with Hoag's Object. Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team

9 May 2005 (edit )

10 May 2005 (edit )

The Valles Marineris is an enormous canyon on Mars. Some 4,000 km in length, up to 200 km wide and 7 km deep, the canyon is believed to have formed via crustal movements and subsequently enlarged by erosion. Credit: NASA

NGC 604 is a giant H II region in the Triangulum Galaxy. One of the largest star-forming regions in the Local Group of galaxies, it is about 1,500 light years across - 50 times larger than the Orion Nebula. Credit: H. Yang, J. Hester, NASA

11 May 2005 (edit )

12 May 2005 (edit )

Saturn shows its uniquely prominent ring system in this image taken by the Voyager 2 probe in 1981. The satellites Tethys, Dione and Rhea are visible at left, with the shadow of Tethys visible on the planet's southern hemisphere. Credit: NASA

The Black Eye Galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a very prominent band of dust covering much of the near side. Very unusual internal motions of the gas within the galaxy give strong evidence that another galaxy collided with and was absorbed by the Black Eye galaxy about 1 billion years ago. Credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team/S. Smartt/D. Richstone

13 May 2005 (edit )

14 May 2005 (edit )

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) constantly monitors the Sun from the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Sun. It has discovered hundreds of tiny Sungrazing comets, most of which are Kreutz Sungrazers, fragments of a giant comet which broke up many centuries ago. Here, a Kreutz Sungrazer displays a prominent tail as it plunges towards the Sun. Credit: SOHO (ESA/NASA)

The Tarantula Nebula is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, an irregular galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. If it were as close as the Orion Nebula, it would shine as brightly as the full Moon, and would fill the constellation of Orion. Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team

15 May 2005 (edit )

16 May 2005 (edit )

Valhalla crater is an impact crater on Jupiter's moon Callisto. Its striking ring fracture system may have formed as semi-liquid material slumped towards the centre of the crater following the impact. Credit: NASA

Omega Centauri is the largest globular cluster known to be orbiting the Milky Way, and is one of the few visible to the naked eye, lying in the southern constellation of Centaurus. It was catalogued as a star by Johann Bayer, hence its Bayer designation, before its non-stellar nature was discovered by Edmond Halley.

17 May 2005 (edit )

18 May 2005 (edit )

Mz3, also known as the Ant Nebula, is a very elongated planetary nebula, formed by gas being ejected from a dying star. The cause of its bipolar shape is not known: magnetic fields, a binary star at the centre of the nebula or interacting stellar winds may all be partly responsible. Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team .

Johannes Kepler documented the appearance of a bright new supernova in 1604, which became known as Kepler's Supernova. The remnants of the giant stellar explosion can still be seen today. This image combines data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. Credit:NASA

19 May 2005 (edit )

20 May 2005 (edit )

Sunspots are regions on the Sun's surface in which very strong magnetic fields cause lower temperatures than the surrounding solar surface, although very high temperatures are often observed above sunspots. This ultraviolet image shows gas at temperatures of over 1,000,000 K over a sunspot. Credit: NASA/TRACE

Constantly flexed by enormous tidal forces during its 42.5 hour orbit, Jupiter's colourful moon Io is an extremely volcanic body, with sulphur volcanoes generating plumes of debris hundreds of kilometres high. Credit:NASA

21 May 2005 (edit )

22 May 2005 (edit )

The astrolabe was a navigational device in common use until the 16th Century, consisting of an engraved representation of the celestial sphere, and is a predecessor of the modern planisphere. This 18th Century Persian astrolabe is in the Whipple Museum of Science History in Cambridge. Photo: Andrew Dunn

The asteroid 433 Eros was the site of the first asteroid landing, by the NEAR spacecraft in February 2001. This image of the 33×13×13km S-type asteroid was taken from low orbit by NEAR on 14 February 2001. Credit: NASA

23 May 2005 (edit )

24 May 2005 (edit )

The globular cluster M80 is one of the densest known, and lies about 28,000 light years away in the constellation of Scorpius. Globular clusters consist mostly of very old stars, but M80 and others also contain anomalously young blue stragglers, which may be formed by stellar mergers in the dense core of the cluster. Credit: NASA/AURA/STSci

The galaxy cluster Abell 1689 acts as a giant lens, distorting the light from a more distant cluster behind it into numerous faint blue arcs in a process known as gravitational lensing. The effect can be used to measure the mass of the cluster, and reveals the presence of large amounts of dark matter. Credit: NASA, the ACS team and ESA

25 May 2005 (edit )

26 May 2005 (edit )

The Space Shuttle was the first re-useable spacecraft. Six were constructed in total, with five seeing active service. Over 100 missions have been flown since the first launch of Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981, shown here. Credit: NASA.

The Pleiades are one of the nearest and most easily visible open clusters in the night sky. They have been known since antiquity, and are symbolic in the mythology of many cultures. They are embedded in a blue hazy reflection nebula, caused by starlight reflecting off dust. Credit: NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech

27 May 2005 (edit )

28 May 2005 (edit )

Transit of Venus occur in pairs 8 years apart, separated by longer gaps of 101 or 121 years. They occur when Venus lies directly between the Earth and the Sun, a situation which requires both planets to be at or close to their ascending or descending node. The transit shown here occurred on 8 June 2004.

The Homunculus Nebula surrounds the super-massive star Eta Carinae, which lies within the larger H II region, the Eta Carinae Nebula. The Homunculus was ejected during an outburst from Eta Carinae in 1842, during which it became the second-brightest star in the sky for a while, second only to Sirius. Credit: Jon Morse/NASA

29 May 2005 (edit )

30 May 2005 (edit )

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a giant storm, larger than the Earth, which has formed Jupiter's most prominent feature for at least the last 400 years. The size, shape and colour of the feature vary with time: currently it is shrinking gradually. This image was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1979. Credit: NASA

The Ring Nebula is one of the best-known planetary nebulae, objects formed when dying stars shed off their outer layers. While planetary nebulae show a diverse range of shapes, the Ring is almost perfectly spherical. It lies about 2300 light years away, in the constellation of Lyra

31 May 2005 (edit )

The Face on Mars was one of the most striking and remarkable images taken during the Viking missions to the red planet. Unmistakably resembling a human face, the image caused many to hypothesise that it was the work of an extraterrestrial civilization. Later images revealed that it was a mundane feature rendered face-like by the angle of the Sun. Credit: NASA