City lights illuminating through the clouds in southern California and Mexico’s Baja California, the rising sun shining Earth’s atmospheric layers in a high-resolution, and young stars lighting up dense clouds of molecular gas in the constellation Orion are some of the most weekly impressive space pictures (September 10, 2011).
This picture combines optical and x-ray images of the galaxy NGC 3993, which lies about 160 million light-years away. The inset (top right) taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory captures the two black holes orbiting a mere 490 light-years apart. Two black holes are likely to be the result of a merger between two galaxies of unequal mass more than a billion years ago.
The picture was released on August 31, 2011
A pictures taken from the International Space Station (ISS) captures city lights shining through the clouds in southern California and Mexico’s Baja California
Thanks to the Mayall four-meter telescope at Arizona’s Kitt Peak National Observatory, the picture can show young stars lighting up dense clouds of molecular gas in the constellation Orion. The gas cloud, also called Orion A, consists of several subjects
An image seen by the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows dark sand collected in low-lying areas in a Martian crater, while the crests of wind-blown dunes create caterpillar-like shapes around the exposed bedrock
An image of a sun halo in the skies over Gangtok, India is created by using trees to block the sun’s direct glare
A radar picture captures a 25-mile-wide (40-kilometer-wide) impact crater on Saturn's moon Titan, only the eighth crater yet found on the moon's surface
A pictures taken by astronaut Ron Garan from aboard the International Space Station shows the rising sun shining Earth’s atmospheric layers in a high-resolution, as the orbiting lab passed over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina
Impressive Space Pictures
Related links:
Weekly Impressive Space Pictures: 28 August 2011
