NASA Images | The Conservation Report

Via the European Space Agency, the microwave sky as seen by Planck:

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Mesospheric clouds captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station:

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Via HubbleSite, a Starburst Cluster:

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Via the Gemini Observatory, the first image of an extrasolar planet, or exoplanet:

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Via the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Saturn’s moon Daphnis. According to NASA, “the moon can be seen orbiting in a rift known as the Keeler Gap in one of Saturn’s rings.”

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Via the Eberly College of Science, “The brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen in X-rays temporarily blinded Swift’s X-ray Telescope on 21 June 2010.” According to David Burrows of Penn State University, “This gamma-ray burst is by far the brightest light source ever seen in X-ray wavelengths at cosmological distances.”

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Via The Daily Galaxy, a star is born near the Orion Nebula: “This object has a remarkable, very complicated appearance that includes two opposite jets that ram into the surrounding interstellar matter.”

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The galaxy—Messier 87—as captured by the Hubble space telescope. The image shows a jet of material being ejected out of the center of Messier 87. The material is being spewed by “a supermassive black hole [at the core of this galaxy] with an estimated (3.2 ± 0.9) × 109 times the mass of the Sun and a diameter larger than the orbit of Pluto. This is one of the highest masses known for a black hole.” Image via Wikipedia.

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HE 0437-5439 is a star that is escaping from the Milky Way. It’s a rare example of a hypervelocity star, and “for every 100 million stars in the Milky Way’s population of 100 billion stars, ‘there lurks one hypervelocity star.’” According to Wikipedia, “the star appears to be receding at an extremely high velocity of 723 km/s, or 2.6 million kilometres per hour. At this speed, the star is no longer gravitationally bound and will leave the Milky Way galaxy system and escape into intergalactic space.”

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Via HubbleSite, the Antennae galaxies, which are two colliding galaxies that are located a staggering 62-million light years from Earth.

On the Net

Top 10 Star Mysteries

Today is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. The environmentally-themed day was “founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson [of Wisconsin] as an environmental teach-in held on April 22, 1970.” Of course, everyday should be Earth Day, but today represents a special remembrance of where our livelihoods, our goods and services, or our well-being derives. The images below represent a mere sample of Earth’s unique possessions, and these images are a reminder of why it’s important to conserve our one and only home and her unique natural possessions.

Environment-themed art with a message (click on any image to enlarge it):

Environment-themed art by Tomás Sánchez, Walton Ford, and Alexis Rockman—some of my favorite artists.

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Photo source for attribution here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me and their images are protected under an attribution license.