Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: Hey Which One of You Bit Pluto
<a href="http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1608/?lang">ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2</a>01SPoW-March7-13-01.jpg
The Very Large Telescope Interferometer at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile has obtained the sharpest view ever of the dusty disc around an aging star. For the first time such features can be compared to those around young stars — and they look surprisingly similar. It’s even possible that a disc appearing at the end of a star’s life might also create a second generation of planets.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/ten-years-of-discovery-by-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona</a>02SPoW-March7-13-09.jpg
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter celebrates a decade monitoring the planet. The mission has been crucial to understanding Mars’ surface, weather, and just last year discovered the possibility of liquid water. This image snapped by the HiRISE camera captures the planet’s Gale Crater, highlighting its unusual textures.
<a href="http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2016/frontier/">NASA</a>03SPoW-March7-13-04.jpg
These two galaxy clusters are part of the “Frontier Fields” project that obtains long observations with multiple telescopes. Both are sites where multiple galaxy clusters are colliding, and x-rays from Chandra reveal the massive amounts of hot gas that pervade each one. Galaxy clusters are important because they are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/what-s-eating-at-pluto">NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI</a>04SPoW-March7-13-06.jpg
Scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission have discovered what looks like a giant “bite mark” on Pluto’s surface. They suspect it may be caused by a process known as sublimation—the transition of a substance from a solid to a gas. The methane ice-rich surface on Pluto may be sublimating away into the atmosphere, exposing a layer of water-ice underneath.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-sees-a-legion-of-galaxies"> NASA, ESA and the HST Frontier Fields team</a>05SPoW-March7-13-05.jpg
Peering deep into the early universe, this picturesque parallel field observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals thousands of colorful galaxies swimming in the inky blackness of space. A few foreground stars from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, are also visible.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/dawns-first-year-at-ceres-a-mountain-emerges">NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA</a>06SPoW-March7-13-10.jpg
Ceres' mysterious mountain Ahuna Mons is seen in this side-perspective mosaic of images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Dawn took these images from its lowest-altitude orbit.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/solar-eclipse-over-the-south-pacific-ocean">NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team</a>07SPoW-March7-13-07.jpg
NASA’s Aqua satellite captures a solar eclipse over the south Pacific Ocean on March 9. A solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking out the light and casting a shadow over the Earth. The March 9 eclipse was visible in parts of southeast Asia, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and America Samoa.
<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia18363/the-saturnian-sisters">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute</a>08SPoW-March7-13-08.jpg
A shot of Saturn’s moons Tethys (left) and Rhea (right) captured by the Cassini spacecraft in visible red light.
