Halloween has come and gone, but there’s no shortage of scary things—in space! The universe is enormous beyond comprehension, and airless and dark to boot.
We’re going to look at its brighter side this week, starting with some scattered Martian craters and a strange mound of sediment located near the largest canyon on Mars, Valles Marineris. Next we’ll say hello to an anticyclone on Jupiter that the Juno spacecraft captured on its 15th pass around the planet.
Then it’s fright night over at the Ghost Nebula. This behemoth of glowing gas and stars is minding its own business in space, but unfortunately a star six light years away is killing it with radiation. It may be the ultimate injustice that this cradle of baby stars is being snuffed out, but that’s life in cold outer space.
After wishing the ghost a painless demise, check out a spiral galaxy called NGC 5033 that looks a lot like our own Milky Way. Except that something really spooky is happening at the center of this galaxy: A supermassive black hole is swallowing up all the stars.
Do you find fulfillment in the emptiness of space? Check out Wired’s full photo collection here.
