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The year in space In 2013, scientists captured stunning images of the planets, a galaxy, a planetary nebula and more from space.
This undated false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and provided by NASA/JPL, shows stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn's North Pole. The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles across. That's 20 times the size of the typical eye of a hurricane on Earth. The hurricane is believed to have been there for years.This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn's north pole captured by Cassini's imaging cameras.
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NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI via AP
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This NASA image released April 24, 2013, shows a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, in 1994. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy on March 24, 1993. It was the first comet observed to be orbiting a planet — in this case, Jupiter — rather than the sun. The effect of Jupiter's tidal forces had already torn the celestial body apart and, eventually, the fragments collided with Jupiter between July 16 and 22, 1994. The image of the comet, showing 21 fragments, was taken May 17, 1994. The image of Jupiter was taken the next day. The planet’s dark spot is the shadow of one of Jupiter's moons, lo. The apparent angular size of Jupiter relative to the comet, and its angular separation from the comet when the images were taken, have been modified for illustration purposes.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
April 10, 2013
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, captured April 10, 2013, shows Comet C/2012 SI, or Comet ISON, when it was slightly closer than Jupiter's orbit, at 386 million miles from the sun. Even at that great distance, the comet is already active, as sunlight warms its surface and causes frozen volatiles to sublimate. An analysis of the dust coma surrounding the solid, icy nucleus reveals a strong jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet's nucleus. The head of the comet is about 3,100 miles across.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
April 21, 2013
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket lifts off from the launchpad at the NASA facility on Wallops Island, Va. The rocket will eventually deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
Steve Helber
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AP
This undated handout artist concept provided by Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows the newly discovered planets Kepler-62e and -f. Scientists using NASA's Kepler telescope have found two distant planets that are in the right place and are the right size for potential life.
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Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics via AP
April 16, 2013
The recently named Donelaitis crater near the center of this image. The crater exhibits bright reddish deposits on its surface, which contrast starkly with the more relatively blue hues of the surrounding terrain. Donelaitis crater was named for Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-1780), a Lithuanian poet. His classic poem, “The Seasons (Metai),” describes the lives of Lithuanian peasants, who at the time of its writing were being pushed into serfdom as most of their country was annexed by the Russian Empire.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
This NASA image obtained April 10, 2013, and taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument at 171 Angstrom shows the current conditions of the quiet corona and upper transition region of the Sun on April 9, 2013.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
A undated handout image by European Southern Observatory, ESO and taken from ESO’s Very Large Telescope showing the glowing green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim and dying star. It is located about 3,300 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). This is the most detailed picture of this object ever taken. These bubbles are made out of gas that used to be the star’s atmosphere. This gas has been expelled by unstable fusion reactions in the star’s core that generated sudden releases of energy, like huge thermonuclear belches. The gas is bathed in strong ultraviolet radiation from the aging star, which makes the gas glow. Different chemical elements glow with different colors and the ghostly green shade prominent in IC 1295 comes from ionized oxygen.
European Southern Observatory
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European Pressphoto Agency
April 3, 2013
Young stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way, are seen in this NASA handout image released April 3, 2013. The SMC is located approximately 180,000 light years from Earth.
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NASA via Reuters
April 6, 2013
This NASA handout image captured by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on board the international space station shows contrails from jet traffic over San Francisco.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
This undated file image provided by the European Space Agency on April 3, 2013, shows the International Space Station in the sunlight. A $2 billion cosmic ray detector on the International Space Station has found the footprint of something that could be dark matter, the mysterious substance that is believed to hold the cosmos together but has never been directly observed, scientists say. But the first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer are almost as enigmatic as dark matter itself. They show evidence of new physics phenomena that could be the strange and unknown dark matter or could be energy that originates from pulsars, scientists at the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva announced.
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NASA/European Space Agency via AP
March 9, 2013
This NASA image shows Canadarm2 and the Dragon supply ship as the shadow of night falls across the Earth, captured by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
March 5, 2013
Dawn on Saturn is greeted across the vastness of interplanetary space by the morning star, Venus, in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Venus appears just off the edge of the planet, in the upper part of the image, directly above the white streak of Saturn's G ring. Lower down, Saturn's E ring makes an appearance, looking blue thanks to the scattering properties of the dust that make up the ring. A bright spot near the E ring is a distant star.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
March 4, 2013
The moon rises over a light blanket of clouds, seen from the International Space Station.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
March 3, 2013
A planetary nebula known as ESO 456-67. Set against a backdrop of bright stars, the rust-colored object lies in the constellation of Sagittarius in the southern sky. Despite the name, these ethereal objects have nothing to do with planets; this misnomer came about over a century ago, when the first astronomers to observe them only had small, poor-quality telescopes. Through these, the nebulae looked small, compact and planet-like — and so were labeled as such.
Jean-Christophe Lambry
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ESA/Hubble-NASA via European Pressphoto Agency
March 1, 2013
The Whirlpool Galaxy M51, a classic spiral galaxy, also known as NGC 5194. It is about 30 million light-years away from Earth and some 60,000 light-years across. The image is a digital combination of a ground-based image from the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and a space-based image from the Hubble Space Telescope highlighting sharp features normally too red to be seen.
Hubble Space Telescope
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NASA via European Pressphoto Agency
Feb. 26, 2013
A highly distorted supernova remnant seen here may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy. The composite image combines X-rays from Chandra (blue and green) radio data from the Very Large Array (pink) and infrared data from the Palomar Observatory (yellow). There is evidence that the explosion that produced W49B left behind a black hole and not a neutron star like most other supernovas.
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NASA via AFP/Getty Images
Feb. 23, 2013
Hamilton, at the tip of Lake Ontario, Canada, is pictured in this photo taken by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. The steel town with the Niagara Escarpment is just visible from space.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via Reuters
Feb. 26, 2013
Lake Baikal in Siberia is seen in this photo taken aboard the International Space Station.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via Reuters
Feb. 25, 2013
The Canadarm2 is pictured. The Canadarm2 is used to capture Space X's Dragon.
Chris Hadfield
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NASA via Reuters
Feb. 3, 2013
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is pictured in a self-portrait.
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NASA via Reuters
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Section:/national/health-science
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