Category Astronomy/Space

Image of the solar protoplanetary nebula. The image on the left is the structure of crystalline silica, and on the right is an electron micrograph of the amoeboid olivine aggregate the research team found in the primitive meteorite, Yamato-793261. (©NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Schematic diagram showing two stages of star formation in the Milky Way galaxy according to Noguchi. In upper illustration, blue (cold) and red (hot) indicate gas. The color map in bottom panel shows distribution of the elemental composition of stars calculated by Noguchi’s model with the purple line indicating how the elemental composition of the gas changes over time (Credit: M. Noguchi, courtesy of Nature). Overlaid contours show the distribution of solar neighborhood stars observed by APOGEE, a spectroscopic device attached to the 2.5 m telescope of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico (Credit: M. Haywood et al. A&A, 589, 66 (2016), reproduced with permission © ESO).

The image shows the distribution of surface ice at the Moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface, where the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature (darker representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer zones). The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. This is the first time scientists have directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon’s surface.
Credit: NASA

This artist’s impression of one of the most distant, oldest, brightest quasars ever seen is hidden behind dust. The quasar dates back to less than one billion years after the big bang.
Credit: NASA/ESA/G.Bacon, STScI