Category Astronomy/Space

Pluto’s Blue Sky: Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles (called tholins) that grow as they settle toward the surface. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

This all-sky movie shows a time lapse of a pulsating aurora on Jan. 3, 2012. Scientists compared the video, taken in Poker Flat, Alaska, over the course of three minutes, with satellite measurements of the numbers and energies of electrons raining down from the magnetosphere to better understand how electrons transfer energy to the upper atmosphere and create the auroras. The black mark traces the satellite foot point—the place where the satellite is magnetically connected to the aurora—of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite. Credits: NASA

Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered fast-moving wave-like features in the dusty disc around the nearby star AU Microscopii. These odd structures are unlike anything ever observed, or even predicted, before now. Credit: ESO, NASA & ESA