Stellar nursery, aurora and + in this week's astronomical images

Every Saturday, FreeGameGuide rounds up the astronomical images NASA has chosen to highlight throughout the week. Here, see beautiful photos of star births and more!

May 25
2024
– 4:00 pm.

(Updated on 5/26/2024 at 8:00 pm)

Another Saturday, another day to check out the latest spotlight photos NASA On your website Astronomy picture of the day. The aurora borealis are here again, showing us how the sun's electrically charged particles can have beautiful effects on our planet.

Image: European Space Agency, Euclid, NASA/C. Upreti/TIO, NOIRLab, DOE, NSF, AURA/Canaltech

In addition to the aurora borealis, a video has also appeared here that takes you on a dive through Jupiter's atmosphere, a gaseous region where stars form and much more.

Learn more about the images and phenomena in the images, and don't forget to view the photo gallery at the end of the article:

1. Northern lights in New York

Stars can produce stunning images, like those captured by Chirag Upreti. The photo taken in New York shows the stars not as bright points, but as arcs created by the Earth's rotation. Photographer A. also recorded Northern lights Colorful reflection in water.

Diving in Jupiter

Let's take a virtual tour of Jupiter? The video below is a simulation that takes you on a diving journey that begins 3,000 kilometers above the planet's cloud top. Then, simply follow the progress of the trip in the images on the left side of the screen.

The animation is based on data obtained by the instruments of the Juno probe, which has been studying Jupiter for more than 10 years.

2. Aurora in the dome

The recent geomagnetic storm produced a breathtaking aurora. The phenomenon was recorded in Arlington in the United States, and surprised photographers Xuecheng Liu and Yuxuan Liu: The aurora borealis usually has the shape of a curtain, but on that day, the duo saw the lights forming a large, colorful dome in the sky!

📷 Read more: The Northern Lights are Astronomical image from Monday (20)

3. Comet globule

Nebulae are known for their unique shapes, which sometimes resemble the shapes we are familiar with. Well, with ball comet CG4, it's no different: This gas cloud located 1,300 light-years from Earth looks like a hand trying to grab hold of the stars, and it ended up being nicknamed the Hand of God.

📷 Read more: The cometary sphere is Astronomical image for Tuesday (21)

4. Twilight green

A green aurora lit up the sky over Östersund, Sweden, in 2016, recorded by Goran Strand and highlighted by NASA. The most interesting thing is that the aurora appears to be deflected by the moon on the left side of the image.

📷 Read more: The green dawn is Astronomical image from Wednesday (22)

5. Galaxy NGC 3169

The galaxy NGC 3169 is 70 million light-years away, near the star Regulus. It appears in the image with its neighbor, NGC 3166, and they are both interacting. At some point, they will end up merging into one galaxy. This process will also occur with our Milky Way and Andromeda.

📷 Read more: The interaction of galaxies in… Astronomical image from Wednesday (23)

6. Stellar Nursery

Finally, the last image highlighted in this collection shows the stellar nursery Messier 78 (M78), where many details were seen for the first time through the “eyes” of Euclid, the European Space Agency's telescope. M78 is located 1,300 light-years from Earth and contains young stars, still surrounded by an envelope of interstellar gas and dust.

📷 Read more: Stellar M78 Nursery is Astronomical image from Wednesday (24)