AWKWARD ZOMBIE

It almost looks like some kind of freaky spiders' web.

Red represents low-energy X-rays, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. The blue hand-like structure was created by energy emanating from the nebula around they dying star PSR B1509-58. The red areas are from a neighboring gas cloud called RCW 89.

Built by Northrop Grumman Corporation, NASA’s Aqua satellite recently marked its 10th year on-orbit, delivering data about the Earth’s climate, water cycle and much more. Aqua is designed to help scientists understand the Earth and make more accurate weather and climate predictions. It was originally planned to conduct a 6-year mission, but extensions were subsequently approved when it showed no signs of fatigue



The eruption of Europe's largest and most active volcano, Mt. Etna, on the island of Sicily. The long, brownish-black plume of ash and smoke streams southward from the volcano and out over the Mediterranean Sea from the eruption. Thee famous "boot" of Italy can be seen at the top of the image.


Nasa-Satellite 'Aqua' shows the devastating forest fires on the peninsula Peloponnes, Greece, 26 August 2007. At least four conflagrations and dozens of smaller fires blaze near Olympia in the west, Kalamata in the southwest and Sparta in the southeast. Some more forest fires rage on Greek island Euboea (C, top). The media refers to the fires as Greek's biggest ecological disaster in human history, 27 August 2007. According to official statements, 61 people have lost their lives. However, the media speaks of 63 deaths. At least 3,000 are homeless


At the conclusion of the wet season in late autumn 2012, multiple fires burned across northern Western Australia, primarily in the Kimberly region. On May 2, 2012.


A volcanic plume blows from Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in southern Iceland. The plume?s tan hue indicates a fairly high ash content. Unlike the soft, fluffy material that results from from burned vegetation, volcanic ash consists of tiny jagged particles of rock


The spill that followed the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform off the coast of Louisiana has become the worst oil spill in American history.


On February 24, 2009, cold northerly winds (perhaps katabatic winds from Greenland) encountered moist air over the Greenland Sea, and their meeting generated dozens of parallel rows of clouds, commonly called “cloud streets,” in the skies around the island of Jan Mayen.


Irene formed as a tropical storm east of the Leeward Islands on August 20, 2011. By August 22, the storm had strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. At 2:00 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time on August 22, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Irene had maximum sustained winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, with higher gusts. The storm was located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) west-northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico.


A thick band of dust snaking across the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, on Friday 13 May, 2005.


This handout picture captured by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Aqua satellite on May 10, 2010 shows Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continuing to emit a dense plume of ash and steam.

I swear that someone just wailed at their keyboard to name that volcano.

Related:

From Bad Astronomy:

Earlier this year, the folks at the European Space Agency’s Hubble HQ announced a contest called Hubble’s Hidden Treasures: they wanted people to go through the massive archives of Hubble’s data and look for gorgeous objects that may have been previously overlooked.
This is a cool idea, and they got over 3000 submissions! They just announced the winners, and it’s a collection of jaw-dropping beauty. Here’s the first place winner in the "Image Processing" category, a stunner of NGC 1763, part of a massive star-forming complex in a companion galaxy to our Milky Way:



Oooo, pretty. That was done by Josh Lake, who won the public vote as well as the judges’ with this work.

It was also nice to see BABlog regular André vd Hoeven place in the contest as well. But I have to say, after looking over the winners, I would’ve leaned toward this shot, by Judy Schmidt:

From Bad Astronomy:

Earlier this year, the folks at the European Space Agency’s Hubble HQ announced a contest called Hubble’s Hidden Treasures: they wanted people to go through the massive archives of Hubble’s data and look for gorgeous objects that may have been previously overlooked.
This is a cool idea, and they got over 3000 submissions! They just announced the winners, and it’s a collection of jaw-dropping beauty. Here’s the first place winner in the "Image Processing" category, a stunner of NGC 1763, part of a massive star-forming complex in a companion galaxy to our Milky Way:



Oooo, pretty. That was done by Josh Lake, who won the public vote as well as the judges’ with this work.

It was also nice to see BABlog regular André vd Hoeven place in the contest as well. But I have to say, after looking over the winners, I would’ve leaned toward this shot, by Judy Schmidt:

SPACE DRAGONS

Best random threadbump

Everyone is still free to post their own.

a "Gods eye" in the Helix Nebula

That gorgeous structure is NGC 2736, also called the Pencil Nebula, part of the much larger Vela supernova remnant. This picture was taken using the 2.2 meter MPG/ESO telescope in Chile. As the debris from the titanic explosion expands, it rams into the interstellar gas surrounding it. That compresses the gas, and drives a shock wave through it. A shock wave occurs when an object moves at supersonic speed through some other material – although the gas in space is thin, in some places it’s thick enough that atoms and molecules in it do collide. It’s still a thin vacuum by our standards, but physics will not be denied.



This photo was taken by ESA astronaut André Kuipers, on board the International Space Station. Frustratingly there’s no info I could find on when this was taken, or what part of the planet it shows… but then, in a way, maybe that’s OK. It’s a reminder of how big Earth is, how easy it is to get lost here, and how much of it there’s still to explore.


Courtesy of Bad Astronomy.

Its kinda lame how me and terraem are the ones that post the most in this thread.

BUT OH WELL I JUST LIKE SPACE A LOT OKAY

Beautiful time-lapse: