Data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft point to more prevalent water ice on Pluto’s surface than previously thought. Water ice is Pluto’s crustal “bedrock,” the canvas on which its more volatile ices paint their seasonally changing patterns. The new false-colour image is derived from observations in infrared light by the probe’s Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array.
European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake pictured during his 4 hour 43 minute spacewalk to replace a failed power regulator and install cabling on the International Space Station. Tim commented on this image: “Today’s exhilarating spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever — quite an incredible feeling!”
This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It is a “new” galaxy in the process of forming, the result of a merger between two separate galaxies that were gradually drawn together by gravity.
Among the most feared events in space physics are solar eruptions — massive explosions that hurl millions of tons of plasma, gas and radiation into space. These outbursts can be deadly to astronauts and when these eruptions reach the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, the contact can create geomagnetic storms that disrupt cell ‘phone service, damage satellites and knock out power grids.
Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft got another shot at Venus after a main engine failure during a crucial orbital-insertion burn meant it zipped past the planet on its first attempt in December 2010. The probe spent five years orbiting the Sun so it could catch up with Venus to try again on 7 December. The successful nail-biting manoeuvre is being celebrated by NASA scientists, eager to learn more about the atmosphere and climate of Earth’s enigmatic sister planet.
NASA’s New Horizons scientists made this false colour image of Pluto using a technique called principal component analysis to highlight the many subtle colour differences between Pluto’s distinct regions. The image data were collected by the spacecraft’s Ralph/MVIC colour camera on 14 July at 11:11 UTC, from a range of 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometres).
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