High resolution image of the Sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory's year 6 of activity composite production.
Space Scene
Once upon a time, Mars had lakes, or at least wetter conditions than it does today. The latest from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows slabs of rock cross-hatched with shallow ridges that likely originated as cracks in drying mud, evidence of an ancient era when these sediments were deposited were.
Space Scene
Sharpless 129 is an H-alpha emission nebula commonly called the Flying Bat Nebula located in Cepheus very close to the famous IC 1396 (the nebula that contains the Elephant's Trunk). The large blue/green nebula inside it, which is over a degree long, is formally known as Ou4 but is colloquially called the Squid (or Giant Squid) Nebula.
Space Scene
The distinctively fluted surface and elongated hills in this image in Medusae Fossae on Mars are caused by wind erosion of a soft fine-grained rock. Called yardangs, these features are aligned with the prevailing wind direction. This wind direction would have dominated for a very long time to carve these large-scale features into the exposed rock we see today. The image was acquired at 15:25 local Mars time on June 28, 2016, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Space Scene
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