NASA Highlights: Nebulae, Asteroids & + in Astronomical Photos of the Week

NASA Highlights: Nebulae, Asteroids & + in Astronomical Photos of the Week


Every Saturday, Canaltech collects the astronomical photos that NASA has chosen to highlight during the week. Here you can see beautiful images of nebulae, planets and more!

Ready to check out another selection of astro photos highlighted by NASA? In the last week, the website Astronomy Picture of the day brought fascinating images of nebulae and their colors, along with recordings of a curious moon of Saturn and even the asteroid Bennu.



Additionally, you can see photos of the recent conjunction of Jupiter and Venus and even a rainbow in beautiful alignment with a tree.

Look down:

Saturday (03/11) — Asteroid Bennu in 3D




Asteroid Bennu in three-dimensional version (Image: Reproduction/NASA, GSFC, U. Arizona - Stereo Image Copyright: Patrick Vantuyne)

If you have 3D glasses at home, with a blue and red lens, it’s worth grabbing them to take a look at this photo, which shows a three-dimensional version of the asteroid Bennu. This space rock measures less than 500 meters and was visited in May 2021 by the OSIRIS-REx mission, which collected samples from its surface. The material is expected to reach Earth in September.

Sunday (03/12) – Hyperion Moon



Saturn's moon Hyperion, photographed by the Cassini mission (Image: Reproduction/NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team)

This curious object is Hyperion, one of dozens of moons of Saturn. The photo is a mosaic produced from six images captured by the Cassini spacecraft in 2005, which highlight the mysterious craters of the moon and its spongy surface.

Most of the craters have dark red material that appears to be similar to that found on part of Iapetus, another moon of Saturn.

Monday (13/03) – The end of the rainbow



Rainbow photographed in California, USA, in early January (Image: Reproduction/Eric Houck)

Rainbows are beautiful weather phenomena that occur due to the reflection and refraction of sunlight in water droplets in the atmosphere. An interesting feature of them is that the position depends on where the observer is and the center of the rainbow always appears in the opposite direction from the Sun.

In the case of this photo, its center was about 40º to the left, just below the horizon. The sun was behind the camera and slightly above the horizon.

Tuesday (3/14) — Soul Nebula



The Soul Nebula is home to star clusters and star formation (Image: Reproduction/José Jiménez (Astromet)

The colors and shapes in this photo belong to the so-called “Soul Nebula”. Also known as “W5,” it hosts star-forming regions, open star clusters, and cosmic dust.

This colored nebula is about 6,500 light-years away from us and extends about 100 light-years. It is composed of hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen.

Wednesday (15/03) – Jupiter and Venus



Jupiter and Venus conjunction, photographed in the sky over Germany (Image: Reproduction/ichael Luy (Trier Observatory)

If you’ve been following the space science news, you may know that Jupiter and Venus were conjunct recently. During the phenomenon, they were separated by a distance similar to the diameter of the Moon in full phase – this, of course, from our observational perspective, since the planets were millions of kilometers apart.

The conjunction happened at the beginning of the month and since then the planets have gradually moved apart.

Thursday, March 16 — Omega Centauri star cluster



Omega Centauri star cluster, about 15,000 light-years away (Image: Reproduction/Neil Corke, Heaven's Mirror Observatory)

Here, the photo shows the Omega Centauri star cluster, one of the largest and most luminous star clusters known. It is home to about 10 million stars much older than the Sun and curiously differ in age and chemical composition. Therefore, it is possible that this cluster is the nucleus of an ancient galaxy.

Friday (3/17) — Medusa Nebula



Medusa Nebula, located about 1,500 light-years away (Image: Reproduction/Martin Bradley Chesterfield Astronomical Society)

Also known as “Abell 21,” the Medusa Nebula is a planetary nebula formed by a low-mass star, such as the Sun, that is nearing the end of its life. It appears near the center of the photo, and extremely hot ultraviolet radiation causes the nebula to glow.

Source: APOD

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