Best space pictures for March 2013

The best space pictures of the month according to the magazine Astronet

M42: inside the Orion Nebula

The Great Nebula in Orion - Close to us a vast star forming region - perhaps the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Glowing nebula gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. This deep image light oxygen and hydrogen is colored artificial flowers, so that on this background are particularly visible pieces and layers of interstellar dust. Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the naked eye near the easily recognizable belt of three stars in the famous constellation of Orion. In addition to the bright young scattered star cluster in the Orion Nebula Trapezium has settled much more stellar nurseries

dust pillars in the Carina Nebula

At the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. Monster - is actually an inanimate pillar of gas and dust that is longer than a light year. The star that is hidden by opaque dust, emits powerful streams of particles. Similar epic battles are conducted in all regions of star Carina Nebula. Stars win in the end, they will destroy their "pillars of creation" in the next 100,000 years, and there will be a new open cluster of stars. Pink dots - a newly formed stars that have already been released from the monsters within which they were born. This image - only a small part of the more exclusive panorama of the Carina Nebula, obtained Space Telescope. Hubble in 2007

Comet PanSTARRS over Parkes

March 5, Comet PanSTARRS (C / 2011 L4) quickly flew along the southern sky, following the sun to the western horizon. Together with this comet made at dusk picture captured on the foreground 64-meter steerable antenna telescope Parkes Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. This telescope has been involved in the study of comets in space age: in March 1986, he followed the Space ESA Giotto machine, which flew about Halley's Comet, and received the first close-up pictures of a comet nucleus. Visible to the naked eye comet PanSTARRS approached the Earth at the shortest distance on 5 March.

Star trails over the Grand Canyon

On this evening starry landscape in all its glory spread the Grand Canyon - one of the natural wonders of the Earth, located on the south-west of America. In the photograph, combine multiple images clearly visible illuminated by moonlight canyon cliffs, consisting of sedimentary rocks. sedimentary rock layers are between 200 million to 2 billion years - a whole box in the geological history of our planet. Recent studies have shown that the canyon itself could have been formed by erosion around 70 million years ago.

the IC 1805: The Heart Nebula

Emission nebula IC 1805, consisting of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds, stretched over 200 light-years. Because of its shape more appropriate for Valentine's Day, the nebula was named Heart Nebula. The nebula IC 1805 at a distance of about 7500 light-years away in the Perseus spiral arm of our galaxy, new stars are born. In fact, in the center space of the heart is a whole cluster of young stars, known under the name Melott 15.

of NGC 2736: Pencil Nebula

This shock wave plows space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. It moves from left to right on this beautifully detailed composite picture. Thin interlocked fibers - it is actually long waves in a layer of glowing gas that we see nearly edge-on. Nebula is cataloged as NGC 2736. It is often called the Pencil Nebula because of the appearance. Its length - about five light-years from us, it removed 800 light-years. The nebula is a small part of the supernova remnant Vela, which is expanding cloud remnants of a star that exploded about 11,000 years ago. residue diameter of 100 light years.

of NGC 6751: Shining Eye Nebula

In a small telescope planetary nebulae can look like a simple circular discs, similar to the planets. But images obtained at Space Telescope. Hubble showed that these glowing gas covers dying stars, like the Sun, have a surprising variety of shapes and symmetries. This composite color image of NGC 6751 - a fine example of a classic planetary nebula with complex structure. It was selected in April 2000 to mark the tenth anniversary of the work of their telescope. Hubble's orbit, but has recently been re-processed in the framework of an amateur astronomy telescope Heritage program them. Hubble.

comet Castle

Wide PanSTARRS dust tail of a comet (C / 2011 L4) has already become a familiar view for many fans of comets in the northern hemisphere. Now the comet is getting weaker, but rises higher above the western horizon after sunset. However, the portrait of the famous comet seems a little fantastic. In this photo curve dust tail of Comet, directed away from the sun, and creeping along the orbit of the comet appears to departing from the glowing castle on a mountain top. This scene could be called Castle comet. Although the traditional name of the building - the castle Hohenzollern. This photo Castle comet against the background of an unusually clear sky was made on March 15 at Gerimanii, 80 kilometers from Stuttgart with a very strong telescopic lens.

The infrared portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Cosmic dust clouds covered the entire ripple infrared portrait of a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way - the Large Magellanic Cloud. Remarkable composite image obtained by the space observatory "Herschel" and Space Telescope. Spitzer shows that dust clouds fill the neighboring dwarf galaxy, it looks like the dust, which is in most of the Milky Way plane. dust temperature corresponds star activity. telescope given to them. Spitzer depicted blue shades show warm dust heated by young stars. Images obtained observatory instruments "Herschel", shown in red and green, they exhibit the dust emission from regions with low or intermediate temperatures where star formation is just beginning or an end.

Helmet Thor

This hat-shaped outer cloud with wing-like appendages are usually called Helmet Thor. Size Helmet Thor is 30 light-years across - even the Norse god he did not seem small. In fact, the helmet is more like a cosmic bubble, meltblown fast wind from the bright, massive star near the center in the surrounding molecular cloud. The central star - extremely hot blue giant - a member of the Wolf-Rayet star. It is assumed that it is on the short stage of evolution, which should result in a supernova explosion. Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2359, is located at a distance of 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major.

Light echo from V838 Mon

For unknown reasons, in January 2002, the outer shell of V838 Mon suddenly expanded, making it the brightest star in the entire Milky Way. Then she became weak, just as suddenly. Astronomers have never seen such a stellar flare. It is known that supernovae and new stars, exploding, emit a substance into the environment. When you look at this photograph V838 Mon seems that it is also the release of substances into the environment. In the case of light echo the light from the flash is reflected from more distant layers of interstellar dust that initially surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about about 20 thousand light-years distant in the constellation Monoceros. The diameter of the light echo is about 6 light-years across.