The International Space Station spotted a Mediterranean island, Neptune and its rings stunned astronomers and an asteroid-colliding spacecraft peered at Jupiter’s closest moon. These are some of this week’s top photos.
A gorgeous view of Jupiter
This spectacular view of Jupiter could have a viewer staring for a long time at all its little details.
It packs a visual punch because it’s made of 600,000 different images. On Sept. 17, astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy revealed this composite image. McCarthy says it actually only took about two hours to take all the images.
Full story: This jaw-dropping Jupiter photo is a photographer’s sharpest ever and made of 600,000 images
Meet the dog-shaped moon robot
Meet LEAP, or the Legged Exploration of the Aristarchus Plateau. This robotic dog might be a future lunar explorer from the European Space Agency. LEAP’s legs could offer a way to explore the moon’s more challenging terrain.
Full story: Moon’s best friend: Robot dogs could be future lunar explorers
The search for ancient star clumps
The first-ever official image from the James Webb Space Telescope dazzled the public around the world. It also got the attention of a team of Canadian astronomers.
They zoomed in on the Sparkler Galaxy (bottom left from center), which gets its nickname because of the small sparkling yellow-red dots that appear around it. And it’s these objects that the team is curious about, because they could be the most distant – and oldest – globular clusters ever found. Globular clusters can contain millions of stars huddled together by their mutual gravity.
Full story: James Webb Space Telescope spots ‘Sparkler Galaxy’ that could host universe’s 1st stars
Ingenuity flies in Mars’ sky again
NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter took its 33rd flight on Sept. 24. The small rotorcraft is a science demonstration, which has proven that it’s possible to fly in Mars’ thin atmosphere. Ingenuity arrived to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in February 2021. The helicopters shadow is visible on the bottom left of this image.
Full story: Ingenuity Mars helicopter notches 33rd Red Planet flight
Dove cubesat spies methane leak
On Tuesday (Sept. 27), European leaders reported three methane gas leaks in two Baltic Sea pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia to Germany.
The day prior, a tiny Earth-observing satellite called Dove from the company Planet spotted signs of a leak above one of the breaches just southeast of Denmark’s Bornholm Island.
Full story: Satellite spies leak from breached Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline (photo)
Lights off in Florida after Hurricane Ian’s rampage
Satellites captured darkened Florida after devastating Hurricane Ian cut power to millions of homes.
The image on the left, taken on the night of Sept. 29 by the NOAA 20 satellite operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reveals the scale of the power outages that hit Florida after Ian swept across the state on Wednesday afternoon and into the night. The comparison image on the right was taken four days earlier. – Tereza Pultarova
For more: Pictures from space! See our image of the day
The closest views of Europa in more than 20 years
NASA’s Jupiter explorer Juno has made a close flyby of the giant planet’s ice-covered moon Europa, providing the most detailed views of this strange world in more than twenty years.
This image, taken as the probe approached the moon, was shared by NASA(opens in new tab) on Twitter on Thursday, September 29, shortly after the closest pass, which took place at 5:36 a.m. EDT (0936 GMT). – Tereza Pultarova
Full Story: Behold! Our closest view of Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa in 22 years
Hurricane Ian swirls over Gulf of Mexico ahead of Florida landfall
The strengthening Hurricane Ian swirls above the Gulf of Mexico in a video sequence taken by NOAA’s GOES 16 satellite as it approaches Florida as a threatening Category 3 storm, forcing people to leave their homes to escape flooding and destructive winds.
Ian emerged over the Caribbean Sea over the weekend as a tropical storm and quickly grew into a hurricane before it reached Cuba on Tuesday (Sept. 27), unleashing heavy rains and sustained winds of 120 mph (192 km/h). – Tereza Pultarova
For more: Pictures from space! See our image of the day
Cubesat witness reveals DART asteroid impact
The Italian LICIACube cubesat, which traveled to the binary asteroid Didymos aboard NASA’s asteroid-smashing DART mission, captured these images of DART’s collision with its target space rock. “Here are the first images taken by #LICIACube of #DARTmission impact on asteroid #Dimorphos,” the LICIACube team tweeted on Tuesday (Sept. 27). “Now weeks and months of hard work are starting for scientists and technicians involved in this mission, so stay tuned because we will have a lot to tell!”
LICIACube is a 31-pound (14 kilograms) spacecraft whose sole purpose is to witness first-hand the impact and the direct aftermath of the ground-breaking DART mission. DART, for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, successfully self-destructed on Monday (Sept. 26), by slamming into the 525-foot-wide (160 m) asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in an attempt to change its orbit around the 2,560-foot-wide (780 m) parent space rock Didymos. The experiment will help NASA develop technology that could one day prevent a devastating asteroid strike on Earth. – Tereza Pultarova
For more: Pictures from space! See our image of the day
Last photo of asteroid Didymos before DART impact
This may be the last picture of asteroid Didymos before its encounter with NASA’s asteroid-smashing probe DART. The dot of light in this image, captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile on the night of September 25/26, is in fact two asteroids combined — Didymos and its smaller moonlet Dimorphos which will be the ultimate target of the collision with DART.
The VLT, one of the most powerful optical telescopes in the world, will play an important role in the observations of the DART impact aftermath. Astronomers hope the telescope will be able to provide data about the composition and motion of the material ejected from Dimorphos upon the DART crash, and make some measurements of the structure of the asteroid’s surface and interior, ESO said in a statement(opens in new tab). – Tereza Pultarova
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