August’s Stunning Space Pictures
An illustration of an exoplanet 20 light-years away, with a mass 12.7 times the mass of Jupiter.
Chuck Carter, Caltech, NRAO/AUI/NSF
(Inside Science) -- In these last few scorching days of August, it is tempting to think of space as a cold vacuum of subzero temperatures. However, planets and star systems across the universe experience blazing temperatures, too. This month, enjoy pictures of a planet where the dog days happen year-round, as well as images of a galaxy so active it forms stars at a breakneck pace, and the cool, ghostly remnants of a long-dead star.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a group of radio telescopes in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, astronomers captured the most detailed anatomy chart of a monster galaxy. Illustrated here is COSMOC-AzTEC-1, located 12.4 billion light-years away. It’s classified as a monster because it’s highly active and forms stars 1,000 times faster than our Milky Way Galaxy. (NAOJ )
This artist’s impression represents the first extrasolar planetary-mass object detected using the radio telescopes at the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico. Named SIMP J01365663+0933473, the planet is a mere 20 light-years from Earth. This behemoth has 12.7 times the mass, and 200 times the magnetic field, of Jupiter -- making it so massive and magnetic that astronomers are classifying it as something between a giant planet and a brown dwarf star. (Chuck Carter, Caltech, NRAO/AUI/NSF )
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope snapped this picture of one of the largest supernova remnants in our galaxy. Thin red filaments snake throughout the image -- leftover signs of an exploded star called HBH 3. The remnant is about 150 light-years in diameter, and about 6,400 light-years from Earth. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC )
This stunning set shows simulated images of the ultrahot Jupiter WASP-121b, a planet that orbits exceptionally close to its star. Above are five different vantage points on its permanent dayside, where temperatures are always scorching hot with no chance of rain. The mystery of this planet is in its lack of water vapor, compared to other similar, but slightly cooler, planets. Through computer simulations like this one, scientists guess that the dayside of this planet might be so irradiated that the molecules that could make water are simply torn apart before they can form. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/AMU )
The sweeping image above is only an extract of an even larger picture that the Hubble Space Telescope took this month. The full image lays out a swath of about 15,000 galaxies, all from different points in time and space. This ultraviolet snapshot is one of the largest panoramic views of diverse, star-forming galaxies across the universe. (NASA/ESA/P. Oesch (University of Geneva)/M. Montes (University of New South Wales) )
Space Telescope Science Institut
