Venture beyond the bright lights of the city and you might just see countless pinpricks of light illuminating the nighttime sky. The awe-inspiring sight of the cosmos invariably creates a feeling of peace, even reflection. But the heavens are a violent place, one filled with colliding galaxies, imploding supernovae, and stars bursting into being.
The universe seemed especially raucous this week. Hubble spotted the "Hockey Stick Galaxy," named for its distinctive shape, being stretched by the gravitational forces of nearby elliptical galaxy NGC 4627 and galaxy NGC 4631. That's nothing compared to a 13-day sunspot tearing across the sun that NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed. The rampage included solar flares, a coronal mass ejection, and a solar energetic particle event. Then there was Jupiter's North North Temperate Little Red Spot 1, a cousin to the Great Red Spot, and just as angry. Located on the outskirts of the planet's north pole, NN-LRS-1 is an anticyclonic oval, which means the winds race in the opposite direction of the surrounding area. It's also around 3,700 miles long.
Yet the heavens offered more than a little beauty amid the chaos. ESO's Very Late Telescope's Adaptive Optics Facility debuted the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer instrument, providing images in finer detail and contrast than ever. It peered at a host of dazzling celestial objects, from the rainbow bubble that is planetary nebula NGC 6563 to a stunning starburst galaxy ESO 338-4 busily merging with other, smaller galaxies.
Want to dive even deeper into the heavenly turmoil? Check out the entire collection.
