Esa's satellite Swarm launch to map Earth's magnetism
The Swarm mission to map the Earth's global magnetic field has launched. Swarm's data should help scientists understand better how the field is generated, and why it appears to be weakening. The strength has fallen by some 15% in the past two centuries. The movement of the north geomagnetic pole has also accelerated. Researchers have speculated that Earth may be on the cusp of a polarity reversal. This has not happened for 780,000 years.
Mars images
Hebes Chasma, esa.int: This martian abyss, more than 4 times as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon, is an enclosed, almost 8 km-deep trough stretching 315 km in an east–west direction and 125 km from north to south at its widest point. It sits about 300 km north of the vast Valles Marineris canyon. Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum). Thanks to @Ben Silbermann Silbermann ! #Space #Mars
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Space Shot of the Day: Cathedral to Massive Stars
Cathedral to Massive Stars - The Hubble Space Telescope took this spellbinding image of Pismis 24 (shown center above), one of the most massive and luminous star clusters known, glimmering above the NGC 6357 nebula that is approximately 8150 light-years away. According to NASA's estimates, the brightest star of Pismis 24 cluster is over 200 times the mass of our Sun.
School of Fail - page 34
NGC 474 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Pisces. This large galaxy is known to possess tidal tails, although their origins remain unknown. These tidal tails may be related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Or the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy just above NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple though it.