Some weird and unusual objects are floating around in the cosmos. Take a look at these five pictures of spectacular items in space.
Space is always serving up something new, unusual, and unexpected. Here are images and explanations of obejcts that have amazed and delighted astronomers. Maybe they will wow you too. The associated images are at the bottom of the page.
- Trilobite on the Sun - One of the most newly discovered strange images in space comes from NASA's Hinode spacecraft. In December 2006, the spacecraft captured a movie of this strange trilobite-like creature swimming to the surface of the sun. The image is actually a magnetic map of a sunspot that is emerging on the sun. That the sunspot looks like a trilobite is coincidental. Trilobites are extinct marine creatures that lived in the Paleozoic Era, some 300 million years ago. Their fossils are found in rocks throughout Earth.
- Mars Happy Face - By now everyone has heard of the face on Mars, which only looks vaguely like a face. When Mars Global Surveyor passed over the area again it took a closer picture to get a better look at the "face" and it turned out to be a lumpy and ordinary mass of land. But another face has been discovered on Mars by Mars Global Surveyor. This '60s style happy face was made from debris from an impact.
- Saturn Hexagon - In the northern polar region of Saturn a giant swirling mass of atmosphere takes on a striking hexagonal appearance. Most of the features in space are round due to the coalescing force of gravity, and few figures with straight sides have been witnessed. First imaged by the Voyager spacecraft decadeds ago, Cassini captured this more recent image of Saturn's hexagon, proving it is a long-lived feature. Studies on this polar vortex are ongoing.
- Hoag's Object - A ring galaxy by itself is a curious creature, but the chance positioning of a ring within a ring makes for a truly remarkable shot. Astronomer Art Hoag first saw this unusual galaxy. It is a bit like Saturn with its distinct central core and outer ring, although in the galaxy the two sections are all made up of stars, gas, and dust. In the gap between the ring and the core, background objects can be seen, including another strange ring-type galaxy.
- Double Helix Nebula - Mother Nature appears to have some favorite forms, from electrons zooming around the core of an atom to planets and asteroids circling their home star, and from the beautiful cloudy whirl of a hurricane to the spiral shape of a galaxy. Now the double helix shape found in DNA has been found in a cloud of gas and dust called a nebula. Astronomers think twisting magnetic field lines created the familiar shape in the Double Helix Nebula. This nebula is 80 light-years long, whereas a double helix in DNA is microscopic.
The copyright of the article Strange Images from Space in Astronomy & Space is owned by Kelly Whitt. Permission to republish Strange Images from Space must be granted by the author in writing.
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