The Week in Space

October 17-23, 2011

Observatory Mashup   Data from three of NASA’s Great Observatories were combined to create one of the most detailed views ever of the core of our galaxy. The near-infrared observations of Hubble (yellow) represent countless stars and energetic regions of star birth. Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared data (red) reveal radiation and winds from stars that create glowing dust clouds in wildly varying shapes. Imaging from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue and violet) shows gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s center. The galaxy’s center lies in the bright region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image height covers about one-quarter of a degree, about half the angular width of the full moon.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / SSC / CXC / STScI

Weekly Calendar

October 17-23, 2011

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 17

Tuesday 18

1967: Venera 4 makes first direct studies of Venus’s atmosphere
1989: STS-34 Atlantis launched
1993: STS-58 Columbia launched
2003: ISS Expedition 8 crew launched

Wednesday 19

Last Quarter Moon 11:30 PM ET

Thursday 20

Friday 21

Mars 6° north of Moon
Orionid meteor shower

1923: First public planetarium show, Deutsches Museum in Munich
1998: Hubble Heritage Project website launched
2008: Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe launched

Saturday 22

Juno in conjunction with Sun
Orionid meteor shower

2136 BC: First record of solar eclipse
1905: Karl Jansky born
1966: Luna 12 launched
1975: Venera 9 orbits Venus
1992: STS-52 Columbia launched

Sunday 23