Gallery: Space Photos of the Week: A Hypergiant Star Gets Too Big for Its Britches

  • Image may contain Nature Outdoors Astronomy Universe Space Outer Space and Nebula
    <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/hubble-hones-in-on-a-hypergiants-home">ESA</a>
    01

    SPoW-March10-07.jpg

    A red hypergiant star only three million years old, located within a cluster 15,000 light years away, has a radius over 1,500 that of our sun: If it was in the sun’s position, it would extend beyond Jupiter’s orbit.
  • In this binary star system two stars waltz around their shared center of gravity completing an orbit around each other...
    <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1710a/">ALMA</a>
    02

    SPoW-March10-04-1.jpg

    In this binary star system, two stars waltz around their shared center of gravity, completing an orbit around each other once every 800 years. Their orbit through gaseous material creates the spiral shape seen here.
  • Image may contain Mountain Outdoors Nature Ice Snow and Glacier
    <a href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/03/Kamchatka_Russia">ESA</a>
    03

    SPoW-March10-06.jpg

    Over the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia, clouds drift above ice and snow along the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, home to 29 active volcanoes.
  • Image may contain Plant Christmas Tree Ornament Tree Nature Outdoors Universe Space Astronomy and Outer Space
    <a href="http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1708b/">ALMA</a>
    04

    SPoW-March10-05.jpg

    In the foreground, this image shows the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. In the upper left lies a faint galaxy rich in dust, A2744\_YD4, inset in red.
  • Image may contain Soil and Archaeology
    <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21554/a-mass-of-viscous-flow-features">NASA</a>
    05

    SPoW-March10-03.jpg

    This massive viscous feature on Mars is bound by high ridges, indicating that it was once an ice-rich deposit.
  • Image may contain Landscape Outdoors Nature Scenery Aerial View Urban and Land
    <a href="http://m.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/03/Kourou_French_Guiana">ESA</a>
    06

    SPoW-March10-01.jpg

    This satellite image shows Kourou in French Guiana, 310 miles north of the equator.
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