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Space News Update — May 27, 2014 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Japanese Craft Launched with Night-Vision Mapping Radar

Story 2:

Rosetta’s Target Comet is Becoming Active

Story 3:

NASA Mars Weather Camera Helps Find New Crater on Red Planet

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

NASA-TV Highlights

Space Calendar

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Japanese Craft Launched with Night-Vision Mapping Radar

The H-2A rocket lifts off from the Tanegashima Space Center. Photo credit: JAXA

A Japanese satellite equipped with a sharp-eyed synthetic aperture radar launched Saturday on a mission to

map the globe every two weeks, helping authorities respond to natural disasters, track agricultural yields and

monitor shipping lanes.

Weighing approximately 2.3 tons, the spacecraft took off at 0305:14 GMT Saturday (11:05:14 p.m. EDT

Friday) from the Tanegashima Space Center, Japan's primary rocket launching facility at the southwestern end

of the country.

The 17-story H-2A rocket streaked into the midday sky, depositing a trail of fire and smoke in its wake. The H-

2A launcher's hydrogen-fueled LE-7A engine and twin solid-fueled boosters collectively produced 1.6 million

pounds of thrust to loft the orange and white rocket into the upper atmosphere.

While the H-2A rocket released four university-built microsatellites a few minutes later, ALOS 2 extended two

electricity-generating solar arrays to a wingspan of 54 feet to begin charging the craft's batteries.

Designed to last at least five years, ALOS 2 follows Japan's previous land mapping mission, which operated

from 2006 to 2011 before suffering a catastrophic power failure. Japan lost the ALOS mission just six weeks

after it was tasked with observing damage in the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that

ravaged the Japanese coastline north of Tokyo, killing thousands and triggering the crisis Fukushima nuclear

power plant.

The first ALOS satellite carried an optical stereo camera system, a radiometer and an L-band radar, combining

the sensors aboard a single spacecraft.

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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency decided to launch the follow-up ALOS 2 satellite with an enhanced

version of the L-band radar carried aboard the first mission. Another spacecraft, named ALOS 3, is set for

launch in 2016 with a high-resolution optical imaging payload.

Before it can start its mapping mission, ALOS 2 must complete a three-step procedure to deploy the satellite's

L-band microwave radar antenna. The rectangular-shaped array, consisting of radar transmitters and

receivers, measures more than 30 feet long and about 10 feet wide.

The schedule calls for the antenna's release from the satellite's main body about 13 hours after launch, then

the unfurling of the array's two wings at 24 hours and 34 hours after launch, according to a mission press kit

released by JAXA.

Two X-band antennas needed to relay the radar data to ground stations on Earth will deploy two days after

launch. The communications antennas will send data at a rate six times faster than the first ALOS mission.

ALOS took 46 days to revisit a location on Earth, while ALOS 2 will fly over the same place at least once every

two weeks. ALOS 2's radar also sports enhancements from the instrument flown on ALOS, giving it higher

resolution to produce sharper imagery and a wider viewing swath to cover more territory on each orbit.

ALOS 2 can also tilt left and right while flying in space to image locations on both sides of its ground track. The

new satellite also flies lower than its predecessor.

"In short, we will be able to image an area in need of observation much more quickly than before," said

Shinichi Suzuki, ALOS 2 project manager, in an interview transcript posted on JAXA's website. "In most cases,

the satellite will be able to observe an area in Japan's vicinity within 12 hours of a request ... and an area

elsewhere in Asia within 24 hours. We plan to provide the standard products about an hour after the

downlink."

Radars mounted on satellites can see the ground day and night and in all weather conditions, overcoming the

limitations of optical cameras.

In a specialized observing mode called spotlight, ALOS 2's radar images will have a resolution of 1 to 3 meters

(3.3 to 9.8 feet), allowing users to focus in localized regions facing emergencies.

Using a standard mapping mode, the satellite's radar will produce imagery with a resolution of 6 meters, or

about 20 feet, in strips about 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, wide.

Other modes programmed into ALOS 2's radar are tailored to monitor floods and detect the wakes of ships.

"Using [radar] to scan the Earth's surface through clouds and vegetation is similar to using X-rays or a CT scan

to examine our bodies," Suzuki said. "Also, the annual contraction of forests and polar glaciers have unknown

effects on climate change -- this is like the lifestyle-related diseases that affect us humans as we live longer.

For humans, getting regular check-ups can help prevent disease. This project is based on the idea that in this

sense, the Earth too needs a health check."

Scientists tracking seismic activity will use ALOS 2 to keep watch on volcanoes when airplanes are unable to

make observations, such as in darkness or when a toxic ash cloud obscures the volcano's crater.

"When volcanic activity increases, it's difficult to know what’s happening inside the crater," said Jun Funasaki

of the Japan Meteorological Agency's seismology and volcanology department. "The same problem arises at

nighttime or in bad weather, but those conditions don't interfere with images taken by the synthetic aperture

radar system, and by improving resolution capability and increasing image taking frequency, we hope to get

more details on crustal deformations regularly."

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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2. Rosetta’s Target Comet is Becoming Active

A close-up view of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, created by stacking a series of 10 minute exposures, is included

in this version of the image taken on 30 April 2014 by the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera. The comet is seen towards the

constellation of Ophiuchus (note that from the vantage point of Earth, both the comet and Rosetta are presently in

Sagittarius) and the globular cluster M107 can also be seen in the field of view. The comet is already displaying a coma,

which extends over 1300 km from the nucleus.

The target of ESA’s Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly

developing over the last six weeks.

A sequence of images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko were taken between 27 March and 4 May, as

the gap between craft and comet closed from around 5 million km to 2 million km.

By the end of the sequence, the comet’s dusty veil – the ‘coma’ – extends some 1300 km into space. By

comparison, the nucleus is roughly only 4 km across, and cannot yet be ‘resolved’.

The coma has developed as a result of the comet moving progressively closer to the Sun along its 6.5 year

orbit. Even though it is still more than 600 million km from the Sun – more than four times the distance

between Earth and Sun – its surface has already started to warm, causing its surface ices to sublimate and gas

to escape from its rock–ice nucleus.

As the gas escapes, it also carries a cloud of tiny dust particles out into space, which slowly expands to create

the coma.

As the comet continues to move closer to the Sun, the warming continues and activity rises, and pressure

from the solar wind will eventually cause some of the material to stream out into a long tail.

Rosetta and the comet will be closest to the Sun in August 2015, between the orbits of Earth and Mars.

The onset of activity now offers scientists the opportunity to study dust production and structures within the

coma before getting much closer.

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“It’s beginning to look like a real comet,” says Holger Sierks, principal investigator for OSIRIS, the Optical,

Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System, at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,

Germany.

“It’s hard to believe that only a few months from now, Rosetta will be deep inside this cloud of dust and en

route to the origin of the comet’s activity.”

In addition, tracking the periodic changes in brightness reveals the nucleus is rotating every 12.4 hours –

about 20 minutes shorter than previously thought.

“These early observations are helping us to develop models of the comet that will be essential to help us

navigate around it once we get closer,” says Sylvain Lodiot, ESA Rosetta spacecraft operations manager.

OSIRIS and the spacecraft’s dedicated navigation cameras have been regularly acquiring images to help

determine Rosetta’s exact trajectory relative to the comet. Using this information, the spacecraft has already

started a series of manoeuvres that will slowly bring it in line with the comet before making its rendezvous in

the first week of August.

Detailed scientific observations will then help to find the best location on the comet for the Philae lander’s

descent to the surface in November.

The images shown here were taken during a six-week period that saw the orbiter’s 11 science experiments

and the lander and its 10 instruments switched back on and checked out after more than 2.5 years of

hibernation.

Earlier this week, a formal review brought these commissioning activities to a close, giving the official ‘go’ for

routine science operations.

“We have a challenging three months ahead of us as we navigate closer to the comet, but after a 10-year

journey it’s great to be able to say that our spacecraft is ready to conduct unique science at comet 67P/C-G,”

says Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager.

Source: ESA Return to Contents

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Hubble Sees Flickering Light Display on Saturn

Source: NASA

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured new images of the dancing auroral lights at Saturn’s north

pole. Taken from Hubble’s perspective in orbit around the Earth,

these images provide a detailed look at Saturn’s stormy aurorae — revealing previously unseen dynamics in the choreography of the

auroral glow.

Saturn has a long, comet-like magnetic tail known as a magnetotail —

as do Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Earth. This magnetotail is present around planets that have a magnetic field, caused by a

rotating core of magnetic elements. It appears that when bursts of particles from the sun hit Saturn, the planet’s magnetotail collapses

and later reconfigures itself, an event that is reflected in the dynamics of its aurorae.

Some of the bursts of light seen shooting around Saturn’s polar regions traveled at speeds over three times faster than the gas giant’s

rotation!

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3. NASA Mars Weather Camera Helps Find New Crater on Red Planet

The new Mars crater spans half the length of a football field in this photo from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s

sharpest-sighted camera, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Researchers have discovered on the Red Planet the largest fresh meteor-impact crater ever firmly documented

with before-and-after images. The images were captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The crater spans half the length of a football field and first appeared in March 2012. The impact that created it

likely was preceded by an explosion in the Martian sky caused by intense friction between an incoming

asteroid and the planet's atmosphere. This series of events can be likened to the meteor blast that shattered

windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia, last year. The air burst and ground impact darkened an area of the Martian

surface about 5 miles (8 kilometers) across.

Since the orbiter began its systematic observation of Mars in 2006, scientists have examined the Mars Color

Imager’s (MARCI’s) daily global coverage, looking for evidence of dust storms and other observable weather

events in the images.

About two months ago, they noticed an inconspicuous dark dot near the equator in one of the images. The

images revealed that the dark spot was present a year ago, but not five years ago. He homed in further,

checking images from about 40 different dates, and pinned down the date the impact event occurred; the spot

was not there up through March 27, 2012, and then appeared before the daily imaging on March 28, 2012.

Once the dark spot was verified as new, it was targeted last month by the orbiter's telescopic Context Camera

(CTX) and the orbiter's sharpest-sighted camera, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE).

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HiRISE reveals more than a dozen smaller craters near the two larger ones seen in the CTX image, possibly

created by chunks of the exploding asteroid or secondary impacts of material ejected from the main craters

during impact. It also reveals many landslides that darkened slopes in the 5-mile surrounding area. A second

HiRISE image in May 2014 added three-dimensional information.

"The biggest crater is unusual, quite shallow compared to other fresh craters we have observed," said HiRISE

Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The largest crater is slightly elongated and spans 159 by 143 feet (48.5 by 43.5 meters).

McEwen estimates the impact object measured about 10 to 18 feet (3 to 5 meters) long, which is less than a

third the estimated length of the asteroid that hit Earth's atmosphere near Chelyabinsk. Because Mars has

much less atmosphere than Earth, space rocks of comparable size are more likely to penetrate to the surface

of Mars and cause larger craters.

"Studies of fresh impact craters on Mars yield valuable information about impact rates and about subsurface

material exposed by the excavations," said Leslie Tamppari, deputy project scientist for the Mars

Reconnaissance Orbiter mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "The

combination of HiRISE and CTX has found and examined many of them, and now MARCI's daily coverage has

given great precision about when a significant impact occurred."

Source: NASA Return to Contents

___________________________________________________________________________

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Wrapping Up Waypoint Work

Source: NASA

Portions of powdered rock collected by drilling into a

sandstone target last week have been delivered to

laboratory instruments inside NASA's Curiosity Mars

rover, and the rover will soon drive on toward its

long-term destination on a mountain slope.

Other instruments on the rover have inspected the

rock's interior exposed in the hole and in drill

cuttings heaped around the hole. The target rock,

"Windjana," is a sandstone slab within a science

waypoint area called "The Kimberley."

The camera and spectrometer at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm examined the texture and

composition of the cuttings. The instrument that fires a laser from atop the rover's mast zapped a

series of points inside the hole with sharpshooter

accuracy.

The rover team has decided not to drill any other rock target at this waypoint. In coming days,

Curiosity will resume driving toward Mount Sharp,

the layered mountain at the middle of Mars' Gale Crater.

The rover is carrying with it some of the powdered

sample material from Windjana that can be

delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.

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The Night Sky

Source: Sky and Telescope Return to Contents

Tuesday, May 27

Comet 209P/LINEAR, the source of last Saturday

morning's meteors, is closest to Earth for the next

five days. It was only 13th magnitude as of May

22nd. It's south of Leo, crossing Sextans and

Crater.

Watch the crescent Moon pass between Jupiter

and Procyon as it waxes from evening to evening.

Wednesday, May 28

What is the oldest thing you have ever seen? The

Earth, Sun, Moon, and planets are 4.6 billion years

old. The age record for people who just glance at

the sky might be Arcturus, about 7 billion years

old. But with a pair of binoculars, you can pick up

the 7.2-magnitude star HD 140283 in Libra. This

star is in competition for the title of the oldest

known, with an age recently measured at about 13

billion years. That means it formed just several

hundred million years after the Big Bang. Spot it

using the finder chart with Gary Seronik's Binocular

Highlight column in the June Sky & Telescope,

page 45. This is almost certainly the oldest thing

you will ever see.

New Moon today (exact at 2:40 p.m. EDT).

Thursday, May 29

As twilight turns to darkness, Mars shines brightly

fire-colored in the south. Look below it for the

four-star pattern of Corvus, the Crow.

Friday, May 30

Look very low in the west-northwest in twilight for

the hairline crescent Moon with Mercury to its

right. They're far to the lower right of bright

Jupiter, as shown here. Binoculars will help.

Saturday, May 31

The Moon, Jupiter, and Pollux above them form a

nearly straight line in twilight as seen from North

America, as shown here.

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)

May 27, Tuesday

8 a.m. - Replay of Video File of the ISS Expedition 40/41 Crew Activities, Soyuz TMA-13M Spacecraft Mating and Rollout to the

Launch Pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan plus Launch Pad Interviews - HQ (All Channels)

2 p.m. - ISS Expedition 40 In-Flight Event with the CBS Radio Network and ABC Digital News - JSC (All Channels)

3 p.m. - Video File of the Russian State Commission Meeting and Final Expedition 40/41 Pre-Launch Crew News Conference in

Baikonur, Kazakhstan - JSC via Baikonur, Kazakhstan (All Channels)

May 28, Wednesday

3 p.m. - ISS Expedition 40/41 Soyuz TMA-13M Launch Coverage (Launch scheduled at 3:57 p.m. ET; includes video B-roll of the

crew’s pre-launch activities at 3:15 p.m. ET) - JSC via Baikonur, Kazakhstan (All Channels)

6 p.m. - Video File of ISS Expedition 40/41 Soyuz TMA-13M Pre-Launch, Launch B-Roll and Post-Launch Interviews (All

Channels)

9 p.m. - ISS Expedition 40/41 Soyuz TMA-13M Docking Coverage (Docking scheduled at 9:48 p.m. ET) - JSC (All Channels)

11 p.m. - ISS Expedition 40/41 Soyuz TMA-13M Hatch Opening and Other Activities (Hatch Opening scheduled at 11:25 p.m. ET) -

JSC via Baikonur, Kazakhstan (All Channels)

May 29, Thursday

1 a.m. - Video File of ISS Expedition 40/41 Soyuz TMA-13M Docking, Hatch Opening and Other Activities - JSC (All Channels)

Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears

Wed May 28, 1:35 AM < 1 min 18° 18 above NNE 13 above NNE

Wed May 28, 3:09 AM 2 min 11° 10 above NNW 11 above N

Wed May 28, 4:47 AM 1 min 13° 10 above NNW 13 above N

Thu May 29, 00:47 AM < 1 min 10° 10 above NE 10 above NE

Thu May 29, 2:20 AM 2 min 13° 10 above NW 13 above N

Thu May 29, 3:58 AM 1 min 11° 10 above NNW 11 above N

Fri May 30, 1:32 AM < 1 min 16° 16 above NNW 15 above N

Fri May 30, 3:09 AM < 1 min 10° 10 above N 10 above N

Fri May 30, 4:45 AM 2 min 19° 10 above NNW 19 above NNE

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Space Calendar

May 27 - Asteroid 4047 Chang'E Closest Approach To Earth (1.626 AU)

May 27 - Asteroid 716 Berkeley Closest Approach To Earth (1.636 AU)

May 27 - Asteroid 472 Roma Closest Approach To Earth (1.819 AU)

May 27 - Asteroid 1008 La Paz Closest Approach To Earth (2.296 AU)

May 28 - Soyuz TMA-13M Soyuz FG Launch (International Space Station 39S)

May 28 - Comet 222P/LINEAR Closest Approach To Earth (0.798 AU)

May 28 - Comet 136P/Mueller At Opposition (3.427 AU)

May 28 - Asteroid 4104 Alu Closest Approach To Earth (1.344 AU)

May 28 - Asteroid 9340 Williamholden Closest Approach To Earth (1.716 AU)

May 28 - Kuiper Belt Object 278361 (2007 JJ43) At Opposition (40.290 AU)

May 28 - 55th Anniversary (1959), Jupiter C Launch Of Two Monkeys (Able & Baker)

May 29 - Comet 209P/LINEAR Near-Earth Flyby (0.056 AU)

May 29 - Comet 300P/Catalina Perihelion (0.826 AU)

May 29 - Comet 4P/Faye Perihelion (1.655 AU)

May 29 - Comet C/2013 O3 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (3.273 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 3808 Tempel Closest Approach To Earth (1.248 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 951 Gaspra Closest Approach To Earth (1.458 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 9880 Stegosaurus Closest Approach To Earth (1.527 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 2034 Bernoulli Closest Approach To Earth (1.631 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 2068 Dangreen Closest Approach To Earth (2.037 AU)

May 29 - Asteroid 21811 Burroughs Closest Approach To Earth (2.447 AU)

May 29 - 40th Anniversary (1974), Luna 22 Launch (Soviet Moon Orbiter)

May 30 - Comet 92P/Sanguin At Opposition (2.216 AU)

May 30 - Asteroid 18932 Robinhood Closest Approach To Earth (1.064 AU)

May 30 - Asteroid 15000 CCD Closest Approach To Earth (1.476 AU)

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Failed Dwarf Galaxy Survives Galactic Collision Thanks to Full Dark-Matter Jacket

Artist’s impression of the Smith Cloud’s plunge into the disk of the Milky Way, which it's destined to hit in approximately 30 million years. The cloud, seen in orange and yellow at bottom of the image, is actual data from the

Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Credit: Bill Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Like a bullet wrapped in a full metal jacket, a high-velocity hydrogen cloud hurtling toward the Milky Way

appears to be encased in a shell of dark matter, according to a new analysis of data from the National Science

Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Astronomers believe that without this protective

shell, the high-velocity cloud (HVC) known as the Smith Cloud would have disintegrated long ago when it first

collided with the disk of our Galaxy.

If confirmed by further observations, a halo of dark matter could mean that the Smith Cloud is actually a failed

dwarf galaxy, an object that has all the right stuff to form a true galaxy, just not enough to produce stars.

"The Smith Cloud is really one of a kind. It's fast, quite extensive, and close enough to study in detail," said

Matthew Nichols with the Sauverny Observatory in Switzerland and principal author on a paper accepted for

publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "It's also a bit of a mystery; an object like

this simply shouldn't survive a trip through the Milky Way, but all the evidence points to the fact that it did."

Previous studies of the Smith Cloud revealed that it first passed through our Galaxy many millions of years

ago. By reexamining and carefully modeling the cloud, astronomers now believe that the Smith Cloud contains

and is actually wrapped in a substantial "halo" of dark matter -- the gravitationally significant yet invisible stuff

that makes up roughly 80 percent of all the matter in the Universe.

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"Based on the currently predicted orbit, we show that a dark matter free cloud would be unlikely to survive

this disk crossing," observed Jay Lockman, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in

Green Bank, West Virginia, and one of the coauthors on the paper. "While a cloud with dark matter easily

survives the passage and produces an object that looks like the Smith Cloud today."

The Milky Way is swarmed by hundreds of high-velocity clouds, which are made up primarily of hydrogen gas

that is too rarefied to form stars in any detectable amount. The only way to observe these objects, therefore,

is with exquisitely sensitive radio telescopes like the GBT, which can detect the faint emission of neutral

hydrogen. If it were visible with the naked eye, the Smith Cloud would cover almost as much sky as the

constellation Orion.

Most high-velocity clouds share a common origin with the Milky Way, either as the leftover building blocks of

galaxy formation or as clumps of material launched by supernovas in the disk of the Galaxy. A rare few,

however, are interlopers from farther off in space with their own distinct pedigree. A halo of dark matter would

strengthen the case for the Smith Cloud being one of these rare exceptions.

Currently, the Smith Cloud is about 8,000 light-years away from the disk of our Galaxy. It is moving toward

the Milky Way at more than 150 miles per second and is predicted to impact again in approximately 30 million

years.

"If confirmed to have dark matter this would in effect be a failed galaxy," said Nichols. "Such a discovery

would begin to show the lower limit of how small a galaxy could be." The researchers believe this could also

improve our understanding of the Milky Way's earliest star formation.

Source: EurekAlert Return to Contents

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Supernova Caught in the Act by Palomar Transient Factory

A star in a distant galaxy explodes as a supernova: while observing a galaxy known as UGC 9379 (left; image from the

Sloan digital Sky Survey; SDSS) located about 350 million light years away from us, in 2013, the team discovered a new

source of bright blue light (right, marked with an arrow; image from the 60" robotic telescope at Palomar Observatory).

This white-hot young supernova marked the explosive death of a massive star in that distant galaxy.

Credit: Avishay Gel-Yam

Source: CalTech

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Space Image of the Week

In the Center of Spiral Galaxy M61 Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA; Acknowledgements: G. Chapdelaine & L. Limatola

Explanation: M61 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Visible in

M61 are a host of features common to spiral galaxies: bright spiral arms, a central bar, dust lanes,

and bright knots of stars. M61, also known as NGC 4303, in similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy.

M61 was discovered by telescope in 1779 twice on the same day, but one observer initially mistook

the galaxy for a comet. Light from M61 takes about 55 million years to reach us. The above image of

the central regions of M61 was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and adapted for release as

part of the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition.

Source: NASA APOD Return to Contents