n-a-s-a:

Antares & Rho Ophiuchus Region

Credit: Philip Perkins

scienceyoucanlove:

Solar Storms, With a Chance of Proton Showers

This large solar flare, produced by an active region of the sun (AR9077), triggered magnetic storms and knocked out satellites when it created a solar storm on July 14, 2000. Nicknamed the Bastille Day Event, it was the third largest storm of its kind in the past 30 years, and the biggest solar radiation event since 1989. The Slinky-like loops represent magnetic field lines.

The orbiting Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite captured this close-up image after the flare erupted. Recorded in extreme ultraviolet light, it covers a 230,000-by-77,000 kilometer area on the sun’s surface and shows a one-million-degree solar plasma cooling down.

(via n-a-s-a)

spaceplasma:

Vesta Full Rotation

In this movie, strung together from a series of images provided by the framing camera on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, we see a full rotation of Vesta, which occurs over the course of roughly five hours.

Credit: JPL

(via n-a-s-a)

n-a-s-a:

370-million-pixel starscape of the Lagoon Nebula

Credit: ESO 

n-a-s-a:

The Moon shining over the Chilean Andes.

Credit: ESO/H.H. Heyer 

n-a-s-a:

Thor’s Helmet

Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Rusterholz (CXIELO Observatory)

The Avengers are everywhere.

Europa’s oceans might taste familiar, apparently.

This is according to scientists who mapped the frozen moon in greater detail than ever before and discovered a new salt compound on its surface. Their research suggests that if you could somehow get to the distant, tiny world, survive the deadly radiation at its surface, drill through its 100-km-thick icy shell, and drink the water without dying, the taste would be somewhat familiar.

From Wired Space Science, story by Adam Mann.

kadrey:

Awesome: The night sky in motion.

Beauty.

(via wilwheaton)

“The heart of the fireworks is hidden behind a dense disk and envelope of dust. Astronomers propose the light flashes are caused by periodic interactions between two newly formed stars that are binary, or gravitationally bound to each other. LRLL 54361 offers insights into the early stages of star formation when lots of gas and dust is being rapidly accreted, or pulled together, to form a new binary star.”