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NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captured this color-coded picture of a star-forming nebula that resembles a Christmas wreath. The cloud of gas and dust, known as Barnard 3, lies in the constellation Perseus, about 1,000 light-years from Earth. The evergreen-colored ring is made up of tiny particles of warm dust. The red cloud, which stands in for the wreath's bow, is probably made of dust that is more metallic and cooler than the surrounding regions. Astronomers say the bright star in the middle of the red cloud, called HD 278942, has cleared out the dust in the central regions to create the glowing wreathlike shape. Bluish background and foreground stars are sprinkled through the scene like silver bells.
Space scientists have dropped off some last-minute presents for Christmas: stunning pictures from deep space, many of which have a holiday theme.
Today, the team behind NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer delivered a picture of a nebula that looks just like a Christmas wreath if you tweak the colors just right. That gift comes on top of a celestial bauble from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, as well as a lucky cosmic horseshoe and a cosmic snow angel from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The imaging team for NASA's Cassini orbiter, currently into its seventh year at Saturn, dropped off a huge plate of holiday treats, with best wishes from team leader Carolyn Porco.
"As another year traveling this magnificent sector of our solar system draws to a close, all of us on Cassini wish all of you a very happy and peaceful holiday season," Porco said in today's image advisory.
Go ahead and enjoy the holiday display:
NASA / CXC / Univ. of Potsdam / ESA / XMM-Newton / AURA / CTIO
This picture of a "celestial bauble" combines X-ray imagery (in blue) from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton probe with optical data (in red and green) from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The bright blue spark at right is a pulsar known as SXP 1062, surrounded by the shell of a supernova remnant. The optical data also reveals spectacular formations of gas and dust in a star-forming region on the left side.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true-color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The imagery was obtained on May 21 when Cassini was 1.4 million miles from Titan.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
Saturn's third-largest moon, Dione, can be seen through the haze of Titan, with the planet and its rings in the background, in a May 21 picture from Cassini.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
Dione, the bright-colored Saturnian moon seen at top in this picture from the Cassini spacecraft, is about 700 miles wide. Titan, which appears to sit below Dione, is 3,200 miles wide. The reason Dione looks bigger is because Cassini was much closer to Dione when the picture was taken on Nov. 6. Dione is 85,000 miles away, while Titan is 684,000 miles away.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
A close-up view of the Saturnian moon Titan reveals a depression within the moon's orange and blue haze layers, near the moon's south pole. The picture was taken by the Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 11. The moon's high altitude haze layer appears blue here, while the main atmospheric haze is orange. The difference in color could be due to particle size of the haze. The blue haze likely consists of smaller particles than the orange haze.
The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, or S106 for short, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. This movie presents a visualization of the star-forming region known as S106. The Hubble image is augmented with additional field-of-view from the Subaru Infrared Telescope.
(Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, T. Borders, L. Frattare, Z. Levay, and F. Summers / Viz 3D team, STScI)
For still more holiday goodies, check out our Year in Space Pictures slideshow. You'll see the celestial snow angel as well as Hubble's view of the fiery galaxy Centaurus A and other glorious pictures from the past year. Happy holidays, from yours truly and all the other good folks who contribute to Cosmic Log and PhotoBlog!
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
We have come so far, yet still so long to go!
To infinity and beyond...
awsome pics...
I'm always amazed at how clever we humans are, to be able to do such things.
I've often wondered what was it in the process of evolution on the plains of Africa that made monkeys so clever. What resulted in a bigger brain size? Cooked food? Or a combination of other factors?
Rakesh,
Some answers to your questions were just covered on NOVA recently, Check it out;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/darwin-never-knew.html
Ad'M; I saw that documentary Wednesday night. You likely recall this article Feb.2009
Before and After Humans "it's a good addendum to "What Darwin Never Knew" I think they have the timeline to far out, I don't believe it will take nearly that long to evolve.
Thanks Ad'M. Great link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjzJNab3P1Q&feature=youtu.be
Merry Christmas Tom and Lyn et al
How far out does "space" extend??? And what defines the boundary? And if there is a boundary, what's on the other side??
Every single day I look up...and wonder.
Good question! I say question, singular, because all three aspects you have identified are basically derivatives of one theory that define spacetime, which ever theory that maybe.
The link below is only one sample of a theory that attempts to define spacetime. Spacetime is the four dimensional "space" we exist in and can observe. There are many such theories of similar flavor but with differences only in the definition of infinity.
The simple answer is we don't know because the physics is incomplete. We are still trying to find our way back to the beginning of time, Big Bang. If, and this is a big if, we can find a theory which can explain the Big Bang, a single point singularity, then maybe we can extrapolate to time infinity.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=c2x1LmVkdXxzdGV2ZS1oYXJyaXMtaG9tZXxneDo1YTMwYTYyYTE2NWNhY2Yy
PS; My personal feel, and everyone is entitled to dream, is that we live in a multiverse of manifolds. An infinite array of soap bubbles all connected by the surface energies (surface tension) and without any empty voids. The Big Bang is the collapse of any one bubble only to regenerate again. And the cycles continue "forever". (Note, time infinity is a mathematical term in the theories where as "forever" is a mechanism (His way?) to reset entropy back to zero once it reaches an equilibrium state. The bubble reaches its maximum size because there is no more useful energy left to burn and so the bubble start to collapse again.
Yes, I have a God in my theory.
Ad'M; I have struggled with posting this comment, being the “time” of year, but the injection of a supernatural being into the evolution of space-time begs a response. And I think it is relevant to the perspective. Maybe we can extrapolate that what some call “God” is nothing more than a consciousness such as our own species that has evolved. And as we can observe in all of nature; all things are cyclical as we believe our universe is (Big Bang Theory). Than it stands to reason that a higher consciousness may or may not still exist.
Enjoy the Season, whatever your perspective!
Masterchief.
Some physicists think that you can never reach the boundary because space/time curves in on itself.
Titan looks smooth, like a billiard ball... incredible images
"The heavens declare the glory of God"
Dear Friends:
There are so many beautiful formations. Please see the Rock formations and mysteries of Bing travel on MSN today. These are similar and yet not. They are formed by chemicals, wind, temperatures, hot, cold and volcanic eruptions, dehydration. Some look like separate cells formed. Some like sharp rock formations with fossil or small shell and oceanography or vanotechnology or marine formations. The marina also supplies water and cooling and bacteria. These when taken from the water environment into land or air make changes. The Utah formations are sand and wind. Most likely originated below the sea level. Others with less sand and wind are revealing of the fossil or shell life attached to the formations. One can question or invite the thought of the Great Flood of Noah.
The formation in Netherland is perhaps an ancient clock or religious site and or is it part of the lost continent? The Broken rock like a fallen bolder hitting on earth or falling to earth would split with the right formation and rock internal. These are so interesting. So much history. This appears like the great salt formation of Brazil compare to the healing salt of Egypt and the salt in Utah used for humans and stops the formation or disease of goiter disease. God and science come together in the Big Bang! The formation of Earth like other planets would be quite a big bang. The formation of the rock with green this could be an example of a meteorite or rock formation from the creation. Small bacteria and when exposed from the ocean and into air and land moss forms.
There is another story of yesterday about a Ms Clark. Her nurse and attorney want her estate. Yet there are known relatives. Is this a story like Great Expectations or Tale of two cities? Is she a relative of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. My heritage is among several Europeans. They also are tied to great ship building early on. How far and how many expeditions west occurred or to the Gulf? Wagon, ships walking? How and from where did the earliest of ships travel to the west coast? When were the first ships through Panama? Was it always called the Panama? How about the early ships of the paddle boat?
Gold mines, silver, coal, West Virginia, Gold Rush?
Happy Holiday! What is the music the Creation from? The Messiah? Amen.
I have found many answers to the mysteries of space and life in the new book by Richard Dawkins "The Magic of Reality". Most recent science concludes there are over 100 billion stars in our galaxy and over 100 billion galaxies in the universe - amazing!
Just think, if what we are seeing here happened a 1000 light years ago then what does it look like today. I guess we'll have to wait another 1000 light years to find out. Hummmm. Think about it.