Best cosmic pictures of the month according to the magazine Astronet

A. Water on Europa

At what percentage of Jupiter's moon Europa is water? In fact, a fairly large. According to data from Galileo, who studied the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, in Europe under the surface layer of ice has a deep vast ocean of water. The depth of the ocean with a layer of surface ice on average can reach 80 to 170 kilometers. If the average depth of 100 kilometers of the ocean to take and gather into a ball all the water that is on Europe, the radius of this ball is 877 kilometers. For scale, the picture this hypothetical water balloon the size of Europe compared with the Europe (left) and with all the water on the ground. The volume of the oceans in Europe exceeds all the oceans of the Earth by 2-3 times. This is one of the most attractive places to look for extraterrestrial life.

Two. Cluster of galaxies in the Hydra

In the foreground of this photograph anchor space, there are two stars of the Milky Way. Behind them stretches a cluster of galaxies in the Hydra. While surrounded by rays of the stars are just a few hundred light-years away in the Hydra cluster galaxies are much further - more than 100 million light years. Three large galaxies in the center - two yellow elliptical (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and well-marked blue spiral (NGC 3312) - have a size of 150 000 light-years each, and are the main galaxies of the cluster. Just above and to the left of the galaxy NGC 3312 is an interesting pair of overlapping galaxies, recorded in a directory called NGC 3314. Cluster in Hydra, also known as cluster Abell 1060, is one of three well-known large clusters of galaxies within 200 million light-years around the Milky Way

Three. The Andromeda Galaxy from GALEX

The Andromeda Galaxy, which is only 2.5 million light years away - it's our nearest neighbor among the large galaxies. Because of its proximity and the huge size of around 260,000 light-years away, a telescope aboard the satellite GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer - Explorer of the evolution of galaxies) needed to obtain images of 11 different fields in order to create this gorgeous portrait of a spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. The images of the Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31) in visible light are clearly visible spiral arms. However, in this picture, depicting the type of galaxy in the ultraviolet, the sleeves, which is dominated by hot, young and massive stars, look more like a ring.

4. Saturn's moon Dione

When at the end of last year the robotic Cassini spacecraft flew closest to Saturn's moon Dione, he made this remarkable picture, which also can be seen Dione Saturn's rings and two small moons: Epimetheus and Prometheus. In the picture it is easy to see the snow-white part of the cratered surface of the 1100-kilometer satellite Dione in contrast to the thin rings of Saturn and the relatively dark surface of the small moon Epimetheus. Cassini took this photograph when it was just 100,000 kilometers from the surface of the large icy moons.

Five. Rise of the full moon

In this telescopic shot the moon rises over a suburb of Fort Collins in the U.S. state of Colorado. During this lunation full moon was 21 hours from perigee.

6. Green light, and Superlunie

On this day, a peaceful haven risen over the Great Luna - the biggest full Moon of 2012. Ships gently swayed in the morning twilight near the lighthouse of La chess Perdris the coast of French Brittany. However, the rising of the moon was preceded by a super green light that is visible on the first frame of the video, shot in the night. Here is a copy of the frame, shot with an exposure of 2 seconds. In the middle of the picture, next to the sea buoy visible bright green flash. Super Moon can be enjoyed throughout the world, but the conditions that gave rise to green light, it is much more specific. As a green light from the moon and the sun is obtained from a = atmospheric refraction, the strengthened presence of the far, low horizon and strong gradients of temperature. Such conditions are usually above the sea.
See also issue - Superlunie 2012

7. galaxy NGC 891

On this beautiful portrait captures outer galaxy NGC 891. The size of the spiral galaxy - about 100 thousand light years from our point of view, it is seen almost exactly edge-on. NGC 891 is located in the constellation Andromeda, is removed from us by 30 million light years and is very similar to our own Milky Way. At first glance, it attracts the attention of a flat, thin disk and central bulge, which crosses the dark band of obscuring dust. Appear on the image as young, blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions.

Eight. Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672

Many of the galaxies near the center is a jumper. It is assumed that even in our own Milky Way Galaxy has a small central bar. Spectacular details of the structure of spiral galaxies with well-marked Barred NGC 1672 are visible in this image, recently received the orbital Hubble Space Telescope. You can see the dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebula of glowing hydrogen gas, a long jumper from the bright stars crossing the center, and a bright active nucleus, which probably is a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to overcome the distance separating us from NGC 1672. The size of the galaxy - about 75,000 light-years across, is visible in the constellation Dorado.

9. In the center of the Omega nebula

Deep in the dark clouds of dust and molecular gas known as the Omega Nebula, star formation continues. In this image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys Hubble Space Telescope, see the fine details of this famous star-forming region. Dark fiber dust, bordering Center Omega nebula, formed in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in supernova remnants.

10. Space Shuttle Enterprise over New York

In this photo taken last week, standing next to two famous New York icons. From left to see the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty - a symbol of freedom worldwide, and on the right stands the Empire State Building - the second highest building in the city. But a photograph can be done only once in a lifetime. After all, there exists also the third icon to the left of Lady Liberty. Far in the background, flying high in the air space shuttle Eneterprayz attached to the back of Boeing 747. He flies to her new home. Residents and visitors of the Big Apple can test to see the shuttle at the Museum of the sea, the Intrepid Air and Space on the west side of Manhattan since July 19.

11. Solar eclipse

The photo shows the sun, partially closed from the left upper side of the moon, and the bottom - the silhouettes of earthlings, watching a solar eclipse.

12. Superluna over Paris

The latter is fully illuminated by the moon, which was called superlunoy, looked a little more than usual, because the Moon has come when the moon was unusually close to the nearest point to Earth in its orbit. In this photo superluna was captured Saturday night, rising to top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Of course, the angular size of the moon compared to the foreground objects can be changed by simply increasing or decreasing the distance from the observer to terrestrial objects. In comparison with similar objects the moon may seem small, but it would look great if you compare it to distant objects. Next month comes another full moon, during which the Moon's apparent size is less than one percent.

13. Star formation in the Tarantula Nebula

The largest area with the most intense star formation in the entire Local Group of galaxies lies in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). If the Tarantula Nebula was the same distance from us as the Orion Nebula - star-forming region in our galaxy - it would last half of the sky. The red and pink gas is a sign of a massive emission nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, but it also contains the remnants of supernova explosions and dark nebulae.

14.

Cosmic dust clouds attenuate the light of distant stars. However, they also reflect the light of neighboring stars. And as the bright stars mainly emit in the blue region of visible light, and interstellar dust scatters blue light better than red, dusty reflection nebulae are illuminated in blue. Excellent examples of such light veils of cosmic dust can serve as reflection nebulae near the stars, and δ π Scorpio (top left and bottom right), shown in this photograph of the head of the constellation Scorpius. Of course, the contrasting red emission nebulae, too, thanks to high-energy radiation glow of hot stars. UV photons ionize the hydrogen in interstellar clouds, and during the recombination of electrons atoms emit a characteristic red light emission line Hα.

15. All the water of the Earth

In what part of Earth is water? In fact, it is very small. Although water oceans cover about 70 percent of the earth's surface, they seem small compared to the radius of the Earth. Today's illustration shows what would happen if all the water located on or near Earth's surface, would be gathered into one big ball. The radius of this ball would have been only 700 kilometers. This is less than the radius of the Moon, but slightly larger than the radius of Saturn's moon Rhea, who, like most moons in the solar system consists mostly of water ice. As even this amount of water could be formed on the surface of the Earth, and whether there is enough liquid water somewhere outside of our planet - these questions remain the subject of constant research.

16. A computer model of the surface of Venus.

This is the second planet of the inner Solar System, which received its name in honor of Venus, the goddess of love.
Venus - Earth-like planets, because has the same force of gravity and composition. It is even sometimes referred to as "Earth's sister planet." And yet, the conditions on the two planets are very different. For example, the surface of Venus is very thick hides the clouds of sulfuric acid clouds, atmospheric surface pressure 92 times greater than on Earth, and the temperature - 475 degrees Celsius.

17. Saturn's Elena.

It was opened March 1, 1980. The average diameter of - 32 km.

18. The galaxy M106.

Was discovered in 1781 by French astronomer Pierre Meshenom. She's rad and the Ursa Major Constellation of the Dog. As a spiral galaxy, M106 has a diameter of 30,000 light years and lies 21 million light-years away.

19. Superlunie

In the night from 5 to May 6, 2012 as the moon came close to Earth, and we could observe an interesting natural phenomenon which is called "superlunie" and the moon looked like 14% more than usual.
Author decided to compare the apparent size of the moon and sun. To do this, he photographed the moon during the "superluniya" Sun and combined them into one picture. We see that the moon a little amount of wins in the visible. (Charlie Szabototh)

20. The spacecraft "Soyuz", docked to the ISS May 11, 2012. (ESA / NASA)

21. Earth from the ISS May 10, 2012. (ESA / NASA)

22. Infrared image of Cygnus X, located in the center of the constellation Cygnus, and at a distance from us of about 4500 light years away.

23. Our Sun, May 29, 2012. (NASA)

24. The image of Saturn captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft on May 27 and received on Earth May 28, 2012. (NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute)

25. The first private spaceship Dragon, developed by SpaceX. View from the ISS May 25, 2012. Dragon was originally conceived with the expectation that it will carry and deliver cargo to the ISS astronauts. Shuttle astronauts on the Dragon will cost no more than 20 million dollars, which is 3 times cheaper than the "Soyuz". (ESA / NASA)

26. Andes mountain system, May 14, 2012. View from the ISS. (ESA / NASA)

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