Mammatus clouds are a relatively rare and dramatic variety. (Image and video credit: M. Olbinski)
- space;the physical universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere//mod carter
“This is an image of the Cartwheel Galaxy taken with the NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) Hubble Space Telescope.
The object was first spotted on wide-field images from the U.K. Schmidt telescope and then studied in detail using the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Lying about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, the cartwheel shape of this galaxy is the result of a violent galactic collision. A smaller galaxy has passed right through a large disk galaxy and produced shock waves that swept up gas and dust — much like the ripples produced when a stone is dropped into a lake — and sparked regions of intense star formation (appearing blue). The outermost ring of the galaxy, which is 1.5 times the size of our Milky Way, marks the shock wave’s leading edge. This object is one of the most dramatic examples of the small class of ring galaxies.” Credit- nasa.gov
#TBT to 1989 when Voyager 2 spotted Uranus looking like a seemingly perfect robin’s egg. 💙 When our Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by it in this image, one pole was pointing directly at the Sun. This means that no matter how much it spins, one half is completely in the sun at all times, and the other half is in total darkness.. Far-flung, Uranus – an ice giant of our solar system – is as mysterious as it is distant. Soon after its launch in 2021, our James Webb Space Telescope will change that by unlocking secrets of its atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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What is this dark spot in the center of the image?
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the star cluster Trumpler 14. One of the largest gatherings of hot, massive and bright stars in the Milky Way, this cluster houses some of the most luminous stars in our entire galaxy.
The prominent dark patch, close to the centre of the cluster is a so called Bok globule: this is an isolated and relatively small dark nebula, containing dense dust and gas. These objects are still subjects of intense research as their structure and density remains somewhat a mystery.
Credit: NASA & ESA, Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Centro de Astrobiología, CSIC-INTA, Spain)