Space Photos of the Week: Spiral Galaxy Swaddles Baby Stars in Its Big Dusty Arms
It's easy to feel like you never have enough time to accomplish the things you need to do, but that's especially true for the Cassini spacecraft. After nearly 138 days circling between Saturn and its glittering rings, Cassini will end its dance by plunging headlong into Saturn next week. But it still has a few more days to beam back fantastic photos before its very dramatic death.
This week during its second-to-last orbit, Cassini sent home a false color image of Saturn's B-rings at the highest resolution ever taken. It also snapped photos of Enceladus, Saturn's icy moon which astronomers crafted into a movie (seen in the gallery as a gif) from six images.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was also hard at work, capturing a photo of the different layers of sulfates in Melas Chasma, a region once thought to be covered in water. A bit closer to Earth, the sun released the largest solar flare observed since the beginning of its solar cycle in 2008. And finally, Hubble spied the sparkling spiral galaxy NGC 5559, its dusty arms cradling a bunch of newborn stars, seen above in bright blue.
Want to see more Grande Finale images of Saturn and craggy photos of Mars? Then check out the full collection.
