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PIX4623639: Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) in Aquarius - Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) - This nebula is located 450 years - light from Earth. Image obtained by a 50 cm telescope, 42 poses of 15 minutes accumulated. Located in the constellation of Aquarius, the Helix is our closest planetary nebula at only 450 light years distance. It is so close that it can be telescopically seen shifting one side to the other in front of the more distant background stars as the earth moves around the sun - a phenomenon called parallax. Parallax measurements are used to trigonometrically deduce distance between an object in space and the earth. A planetary nebula results when a red giant star, near the ends of it's productive life, sheds its outer layers into space and creates a breathtaking shell of surrounding gas that early visual astronomers likened to the disks of planets. This planetary spans approximately 1.5 light years and is still expanding. The name associated with the Helix is derived from the cork - screw appearance that resulted from the spin induced by the nebula's central star as its outer layers were thrown off into the surrounding vacuum of space. This image of the Helix Nebula, photographed by R. Jay GabAny was the result of combining forty two, fifteen minute digital exposures taken during the month of September 2005, through a remotely controlled twenty inch Ritchey - Chretien telescope with an eleven mega - pixel camera at f/8. The remote observatory is located in Cloudcroft, New Mexico City, 7,000 feet above sea level in the Sacramento Mountains / Bridgeman Images
PIX4616735: Mars surface seen by the rover Curiosity 04/2015 - Martian surface seen from the rover Curiosity 04/2015 - Panorama of the surface of Mars on Mount Sharp. Mosaic of images obtained by the rover Curiosity and his camera Mastcam on 10 and 11 April 2015. A southward - looking panorama combining images from both cameras of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on Nasa's Curiosity Mars Rover shows diverse geological textures on Mount Sharp. Three years after landing on Mars, the mission is investigating this layered mountain for evidence about changes in Martian environmental conditions, from an ancient time when conditions were favorable for microbial life to the much - drier present. Gravel and sand ripples fill the foreground, typical of terrains that Curiosity traversed to reach Mount Sharp from its landing site. Outcrops in the midfield are of two types: dust - covered, smooth bedrock that forms the base of the mountain, and sandstone ridges that shed boulders as they erode. Rounded buttes in the distance contain sulfate minerals, perhaps indicating a change in the availability of water when they formed. Some of the layering patterns on higher levels of Mount Sharp in the background are tilted at different angles than others, evidence of complicated relationships still to be deciphered. The scene spans from southeastward at left to southwestward at right. The component images were taken on April 10 and 11, 2015, the 952nd and 953rd Martian days (or sols) since the rover's landing on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012, UTC (Aug. 5, PDT). Images in the central part of the panorama are from Mastcam's right - eye camera, which is equipped with a 100 - millimeter - focal - length telephoto lens. Images used in outer portions, including the most remote portions of the mountain in the scene, were taken with Mastcam's left - eye camera, using a wider - angle, 34 - millimeter lens / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623785: Planetary Nebula of Boomerang in Centaur/HST - The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula and the coldest object found in the Universe so far. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young planetary nebula known (rather curiously) as the Boomerang Nebula. It is in the constellation of Centaurus, 5000 light - years from Earth. Planetary nebulae form around a bright, central star when it expels gas in the last stages of its life. The Boomerang Nebula is one of the University's peculiar places. In 1995, using the 15 - metre ESO SEST Telescope in Chile, astronomers revealed that it is the coldest place in the Universe found so far. With a temperature of - 272 degrees Celsius, it is only 1 degree warmer than absolute zero (the lowest limit for all temperatures). Even the - 270 degrees Celsius glow from the Big Bang is warmer than this nebula. It is the only object found so far that has a temperature lower than the microwave background. Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground - based telescope in Australia. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. The high - resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name. The Hubble telescope took this image in 1998. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The diffuse bow - tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery. The general bow - tie shape of the Boomerang appears to have been created by a very fierce 500,000 / Bridgeman Images