The universe is a mystery, and space agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) help us understand it better. The US space agency constantly shares images and videos from space to bring common people closer to celestial objects and other bodies.
Here are top 10 NASA images that will provide you a rare glimpse of space to unlock its mysteries:
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In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and used them to image the bones in his wife’s hand, kicking off a revolutionary diagnostic tool for medicine. Now two of NASA’s X-ray space telescopes have combined their imaging powers to unveil the magnetic field “bones” of a remarkable hand-shaped structure in space. Together, these telescopes reveal the behavior of a dead collapsed star that lives on through plumes of particles of energized matter and antimatter.
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Wispy tendrilsof hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop nebula, taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away, and is a supernova remnant, left over from a massive stellar explosion that occurred between 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. The Cygnus Loop extends over three times the size of the full moon in the night sky, and is tucked next to one of the “swan’s wings” in the constellation of Cygnus.
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The ‘Pillars of Creation’ have fascinated humans for decades, and the credit goes to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which captured this ethereal beauty present in the heart of the Eagle Nebula for the first time in the 1990s.
The 3D video of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ would enable viewers to fly past these pillars and experience their existence as a three-dimensional structure. The visible light images of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ have been captured by NASA’s Hubble telescope, whereas, infra-red photos have been captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope.
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Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is the remnant of a massive star that exploded about 300 years ago. The X-ray image shows an expanding shell of hot gas produced by the explosion.
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While the spiral feature in the upper portion of this Hubble image may resemble the arm of a galaxy or the heart of a cosmic storm, it is actually a small portion of Caldwell 20 (NGC 7000), or the North America Nebula. Discovered by William Herschel in 1786 and nicknamed for its resemblance to the continent of North America, Caldwell 20 is located roughly 1,800 light-years from Earth and occupies a space in the constellation Cygnus that appears more than three times larger than the full moon.
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NASA’s captivating image reveals gigantic jets soaring from a thunderstorm towards the Himalayas in China and Bhutan. The image captures four gigantic jets occurring only minutes apart. These phenomena, documented only in this century, are lightning discharges between certain thunderstorms and the Earth’s ionosphere high above them.
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V838 Monocreotis is a distant star located around 20,000 light-years away from Earth at the outer edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. The expanding illumination of never-before-seen spirals of dust is called a light echo.
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Westerlund 2, a giant cluster of 3,000 stars, resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29. The Hubble Space Telescope pierced through the dusty veil shrouding the stellar nursery by observing near-infrared light, giving astronomers a clear view of the nebula and the dense concentration of stars in the central cluster. The cluster measures between 6 to 13 light-years across. The giant star cluster is only about 2 million years old and contains some of our galaxy’s hottest, brightest, and most massive stars.
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This cosmic portrait – captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 – shows a stunning view of the spiral galaxy NGC 4571, which lies approximately 60 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation – whose name translates as Bernice’s Hair – was named after an Egyptian queen who lived more than 2,200 years ago.
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the “antics” of a pair of actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared light. To find them, trace the bright pink and red diffraction spikes until you hit the center: The stars are within the orange-white splotch. They are buried deeply in a disk of gas and dust that feeds their growth as they continue to gain mass. The disk is not visible, but its shadow can be seen in the two dark, conical regions surrounding the central stars.
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Published: 02 Jul 2024, 03:28 PM IST