SPoW_Sept1_2017
01This photo features the MCG+01-38-004 galaxy and MCG+01-38-005 galaxy, but it’s the latter that’s truly fascinating. It’s known as a water megamaser and helps scientists understand the expanding universe. Megamasers are when celestial objects shoot out especially powerful radiation called microwave lasers. The “water” surrounding MCG+01-38-005 is actually energy ebbing out from the galaxy’s active nucleus, most likely powered by a hungry supermassive black hole in the center.
02NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the eclipse from the POV of the moon as it passed in front of the sun on August 21. You can spot the moon’s umbra, or shadow, over the top right part of the Earth.
03This is the ESO’s Very Large Telescope shooting lasers into the sky acting as an artificial guide star for the adaptive optics system.
04NASA’s Cassini spacecraft soared between Saturn and its rings, creating this fascinating gif.
05The Cosmic Eyelash is a distant starburst galaxy that looks like a pair due to gravitational lensing.
06A photo of Saturn’s cloudy north pole, captured 166,000 miles away by the Cassini spacecraft on day one of its Grand Finale, a series of dives between the planet and its rings.
