The National Aeronautics of Space Administration (NASA) never fails to astound us with breathtaking images from space, offering glimpses into phenomena light years away from Earth. From purple Jupiter, nebulas to galaxies, here are NASA's eight top recent snapshots of the cosmos.
NASA shared picture of Charon which is one of Pluto’s five moons. Charon is 754 miles (1,214 kilometers) across, half the size of Pluto, and the largest known satellite relative to its parent body. Charon completes an orbit around Pluto every 6.4 Earth days. According to NASA, the pictures of Charon reveal a surprisingly complex and dynamic history. Many new horizons scientists anticipated Charon to be a dull, crater-filled world; however, they discovered a landscape featuring mountains, canyons, landslides, and surface color variations.
NASA in a post on Instagram said, “Thirty years ago this week, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments collided into Jupiter. Hubble made several observations, including this ultraviolet view of the aftermath, in order to sequentially track this historic cosmic occurrence. In the image, NASA has said that Jupiter’s moon Io is the dark spot just above the center of the planet while the dark splotches near the lower part of Jupiter show the comet’s impact scars.
The US space agency also shared images of dwarf irregular galaxy Galaxy NGC 5238. This galaxy is located 14.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. NASA stated that astronomers suggest that NGC 5238 might have had a close encounter with another galaxy around a billion years ago. The distorted shape of NGC 5238 supports this theory.
NGC 2467, a star-forming region discovered in the nineteenth century, is located in the southern constellation of Puppis about 13,000 light-years from Earth. This vast cloud of mostly hydrogen gas acts as a nursery for new stars. While some young stars emerge from the dense clouds, many remain hidden. These stars emit strong ultraviolet radiation, making the region glow with also sculpting the environment and gradually eroding the gas clouds.
NASA shared image of Astronaut Neil Armstrong who became the first to walk on the moon's surface. Putting his first step on the moon, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He was followed by Buzz Aldrin and together collected samples and conducted experiments.
