Universe Today
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2011 was a picturesque year! The year brought us new discoveries, a new supernova, the end of an era in human spaceflight, and much more. Here's a look back at some of the best images we've posted on Universe Today in 2011, listed in no particular order:
Above, is one of the first-ever images of a space shuttle docked to the International Space Station. The images were taken by ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli on May 23, 2011 through a window inside the Soyuz TMA-20 vehicle as he and two crewmates were departing the ISS for their return trip to Earth. See the entire gallery of images of this event
here.
[caption id="attachment_88467" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Supernova PTF11kly in M101. Credit: Rick Johnson"]
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A new supernova showed up in 2011 in the Pinwheel galaxy, and skywatchers around the world tried to capture it. Amateur astronomer
Rick Johnson submitted this image
for our new "Astrophoto" feature this year on Universe Today. Called the SN PTF11kly, the new Type Ia supernova was spotted by Caltech's Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey in the M101, and is located 21 million light years away. You can see the supernova marked in the southern part of the galaxy.
[caption id="attachment_87370" align="aligncenter" width="463" caption="Atlantis launches one last time on July 8, 2011. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today."]
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2011 saw the end of an era: the space shuttle program is now history. Universe Today photographer
Alan Walters
captured this stunning view of the last shuttle launch ever. Read our articles about the
final launch
and
landing
of the space shuttle era.
[caption id="attachment_85440" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A portion of the Lagoon nebula imaged by the Gemini South telescope with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. Credit: Julia I. Arias and Rodolfo H. Barbá Departamento de Física, Universidad de La Serena (Chile), and ICATE-CONICET (Argentina)."]
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A
gorgeous new look
at the "Southern Cliff" in the Lagoon Nebula from the Gemini South Observatory.
[caption id="attachment_87906" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Saturns moons and rings, in color. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI. Edited by Jason Major. Click for larger version. "]
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The Cassini spacecraft continues to crank out spectacular images, and this
stunning image of a "flash mob"
of moons strung along Saturn's rings is just an example.
[caption id="attachment_87025" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="ATV2 (Johannes Kepler) as it departs the ISS against the backdrop of Earth. Credit: NASA/Ron Garan"]
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Real image or from a movie? The ATV-2 Johannes Kepler
looks like an X-Wing fighter
from Star Wars as it departed from the International Space Station.
[caption id="attachment_85792" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A new image from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an ethereal landscape near Mars north pole. Credit: NASA/HiRISE team"]
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Incredible landscapes are specialties of the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and
this observation
shows dune gullies laced with beautiful swirls of tracks left by dust devils. Just like on Earth, dust devils move across the Martian surface and expose the underlying darker material, creating a striking view.
[caption id="attachment_83339" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A new image from ESO of the reflection nebula Messier 78. Credit: ESO and Igor Chekalin"]
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Here's a "Hidden Treasure" from the European Southern Observatory, from the astrophotography competition where amateurs create images from unused ESO data. In this new image of Messier 78,
brilliant starlight ricochets off dust particles
in the nebula, illuminating it with scattered blue light and creating what is called a reflection nebula.
[caption id="attachment_86318" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Series of transits taken on May 20, 22 and 23, 2011 from different areas of France, showing variations of orientation of the ISS with Endeavour docked. On May 23, the ISS passes besides a sunspot which is larger than the Earth. Credit: Thierry Legault"]
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This series of images is just an example of the great work by award-winning French astrophotographer Thierry Legault. During shuttle Endeavour's final mission, Legault traveled through Germany, France and Spain to find clear skies and good seeing to capture the shuttle's voyage to the International Space Station. See more incredible images
here.
[caption id="attachment_88685" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="The 'Rock Garden' at the rim of Endeavour Crater on Mars as seen by the Opportunity rover. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech, color by Stu Atkinson"]
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The Opportunity rover is now exploring Endeavour Crater and this color view of shows a stunning landscape on Mars. This view of a Red Planet "rock garden" is the colorized handiwork of Stu Atkinson, a member of
Unmanned Spaceflight
and author of the
Road to Endeavour
blog. This is actually an ejecta field of rocks thrown about after the impact that created this huge crater, and has been an exciting region for the MER scientists to explore.
[caption id="attachment_84848" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Dense filaments of gas in the IC5146 interstellar cloud. This image was taken by ESA's Herschel space observatory at infrared wavelengths 70, 250 and 500 microns. Stars are forming along these filaments. Credits: ESA/Herschel/SPIRE/PACS/D. Arzoumanian (CEA Saclay) for the "Gould Belt survey" Key Programme Consortium."]
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Its true there is no sound in empty interstellar space, but the Herschel space observatory
has observed the cosmic equivalent of sonic booms
. Filaments like this have been sighted before by other infrared satellites, but they have never been seen clearly enough to have their widths measure.
[caption id="attachment_86362" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A huge and spectacular prominence eruption on the Sun, June 7, 2011. Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory"]
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On June 7, 2011
an amazingly massive and spectacular event took place on the Sun: a huge prominence eruption, marked by a solar flare and release of energetic particles. It was an event that was heretofore unseen on the Sun, but the Solar Dynamics Observatory saw it all.
[caption id="attachment_89554" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="A view of a recent aurora from the ISS. Credit: NASA"]
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With the Sun's activities ramping up, we saw more aurorae. What better place to see them than from the International Space Station?
This view
taken by astroanut Mike Fossum shows a stunning aurora, with two Russian vehicles docked to the station in the foreground.
[caption id="attachment_88719" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="The star cluster NGC 2100 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Credit: ESO"]
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A brilliant cluster of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, open cluster
NGC 2100 shines brightly
, competing with the nearby Tarantula Nebula for bragging rights in this image from ESO's New Technology Telescope (NTT).
[caption id="attachment_92167" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Martian Vista from Opportunity nearing Endeavour Crater on Sol 2678 - August 2011 Large ejecta blocks from the nearby, small Odyssey crater are visible in the middle, foreground and are Opportunity's next science target in this photo mosaic taken 2 martian days ago on Sol 2678 (Aug. 6). Opportunity is now less than 400 feet from the foothills of Endeavour Crater and will soon make first landfall at Spirit Point - off to the left. At Endeavour, Opportunity will investigate the oldest minerals deposits she has ever visited from billions of years ago and which may hold clues to environments that were potentially habitable for microbial life. This photo mosaic shows portions of the discontinuous crater rim – Cape Tribulation at right. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer"]
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Universe Today's Ken Kremer helped bring this stunning image of the hills around Endeavour Crater to light, as the Opportunity Rover headed towards the crater in August.
[caption id="attachment_88369" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Moon Covers Venus. Credit: Kevin Jung"]
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Another amateur astrophoto
shows an occultation of Venus by the Moon, taken by Kevin Jung.
[caption id="attachment_84398" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="X-ray Image of Tycho's Supernova Remnant. (NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.) "]
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The Chandra X-Ray Observatory took
a brand new, deep look
inside the Tycho Supernova Remnant, providing a nearly three-dimensional view of the iconic space object.
[caption id="attachment_92109" align="aligncenter" width="386" caption="Comet Lovejoy. Image Credit: Barry Armstead"]
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And just the past several days southern skywatchers have been treated to the beautiful sights of Comet Lovejoy --
which was also seen from the International Space Station.
Go take a look!
These are just a sampling of the great images we've seen in 2011. Here's to more great views in 2012!
