Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Galaxy Cannibalism
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/hubble-view-of-a-nitrogen-rich-nebula">ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Matej Novak</a>01A nitrogen-rich nebula
An image of the planetary nebula NGC 6153, which is located about 4,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The blue haze is from a star like the sun that has depleted most of its fuel.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/sdo-sees-mid-level-solar-flare">NASA/SDO</a>0220150625-m7.9flare
A M7.9-class solar flare on June 25. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere, but the flares can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
<a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/15_releases/press_062315.html">X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison/S.Heinz et al; Optical: DSS</a>03A system with a neutron star in orbit with a massive star about 30,700 light years from Earth.
A photograph of the largest and brightest set of rings from X-ray light echoes ever observed. The rings were produced by a flare from a neutron star and gave astronomers a rare chance to precisely measure the distance to an object on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/pia18322/triple-crescents">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute</a>04pia18322-1041
This image from the Cassini mission shows three of Saturn's many moons all caught together in a crescent shape. The three moons are Titan, Mimas, and Rhea.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/lights-of-an-aurora-from-the-international-space-station">NASA</a>0510985448-1008374299195501-5466746330361748522-o
A photo of an aurora as seen from the International Space Station on June 23. The photo was captured by NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly.
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1525/">European Southern Observatory</a>06The halo of galaxy Messier 87
Astronomers recently discovered that the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 has swallowed an entire medium-sized galaxy over the last billion years.
