Images In The Raw #2

Clicking on the images will take you directly to their sources and the stories behind them.

Jupiter

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft starting at 5:31 Universal time on December 29, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced... -- NASA/JPL/SSI

The Galilean satellite Io floats above the cloudtops of Jupiter in this image captured two days after Cassini's closest approach... -- NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

On January 15, 2001, Cassini resumed repeated imaging of Jupiter as it began its departure from the Jovian system. At this time, and throughout the departure phase, only a planetary crescent was visible... -- NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This is a montage of New Horizons images of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007... -- NASA/JHU/APL

Mission to Jupiter -- With its suite of science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras. Juno's principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our solar system during its formation.
Mission Timeline: Launch - August 2011; Earth flyby gravity assist - October 2013; Jupiter arrival - August 2016
Image credit: NASA/JPL

The Milky Way's Spiral Structure And Our Place In It

Infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope have enabled scientists to map a new view of the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure. It is dominated by two major arms--Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus--and two minor arms--Norma and Sagittarius--which are located between the major arms. A radio-telescope survey also mapped a new spiral arm--the Far-3 kiloparsec arm--which lies along the central bar of the Milky Way.


In this annotated version of the map, our sun is show between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms near a small, partial arm called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Cat’s Paw Nebula

NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy and has been extensively studied by astronomers. The nebula conceals freshly minted brilliant blue stars — each nearly ten times the mass of our Sun and born in the last few million years. The region is also home to many baby stars that are buried deep in the dust, making them difficult to study. In total, the Cat’s Paw Nebula could contain several tens of thousands of stars. -- Press Release

Credit: ESO

Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

Tethys Slips Behind Titan

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Enceladus

Blobs of warm ice that periodically rise to the surface and churn the icy crust on Saturn's moon Enceladus explain the quirky heat behavior and intriguing surface of the moon's south polar region, according to a new paper using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. -- Press Release
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS)

More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly. This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the evolution of galaxies.

The final image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light, and into the near-infrared. Such a detailed multi-color view of the universe has never before been assembled in such a combination of color, clarity, accuracy, and depth. -- Press Release

Detailed Images:



Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Windhorst, S. Cohen, M. Mechtley, and M. Rutkowski (Arizona State University, Tempe), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), P. McCarthy (Carnegie Observatories), N. Hathi (University of California, Riverside), R. Ryan (University of California, Davis), H. Yan (Ohio State University), and A. Koekemoer (Space Telescope Science Institute)

Just Another Day at NASA

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before...

This is the deepest image of the Universe ever taken in near-infrared light by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The faintest and reddest objects (left inset) in the image are galaxies that correspond to lookback times of approximately 12.9 billion years to 13.1 billion years. No galaxies have been seen before at such early epochs. -- Press Release

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory: New, very deep exposure of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (Sagittarius A*).

Astronomers have long known that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A* for short), is a particularly poor eater. The fuel for this black hole comes from powerful winds blown off dozens of massive young stars that are concentrated nearby. These stars are located a relatively large distance away from Sgr A*, where the gravity of the black hole is weak, and so their high-velocity winds are difficult for the black hole to capture and swallow. Scientists have previously calculated that Sgr A* should consume only about 1% of the fuel carried in the winds. However, it now appears that Sgr A* consumes even less than expected -- Press Release

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken this infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, revealing the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away.

Infrared light is color-coded in the new picture, so that blue shows older stars, green shows organic dust and red highlights dust-enshrouded star formation. -- Press Release

Kepler's First Five Exoplanets

The Kepler team announced the discovery of its first 5 exoplanets today.

NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.

Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by the members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington. -- Full Press Release

A series of slides was shown as part of the news briefing. Below are a few of the more intriguing and illuminating graphics.







Images: NASA, AAS