{"id":23366,"date":"2016-05-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/picsart.com\/blog\/?p=23366"},"modified":"2022-06-13T06:51:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T13:51:32","slug":"space-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/picsart.com\/blog\/space-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrate Space Day With These Breathtaking Photographs That Are Out of This World"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut and travel into space (then I grew up and realized how much math is involved, and quickly changed my mind). Something about the unknown, the colors, the mystery and the sheer magnitude always drew me in \u2014 it still does. Space never ceases to blow my mind and take my breath away, whether I\u2019m watching the sun set, the moon rise, or wishing on a shooting star. But there is so much more to space that most of us can comprehend. Astrophotography has not only created beautiful works of art, but it has had an astronomical impact on space research. By using long exposures (and we mean loooooooong<\/em> exposures), cameras are able to photograph dim stars, nebulae and galaxies that are usually invisible to the human eye. To celebrate National Space Day, here are some of the most other-worldly (literally) photographs taken by NASA.<\/p>\n

Pillars of Creation<\/span><\/h1>\n

Likely one of the most iconic images ever taken with the Hubble Telescope, this photograph of the Pillars of Creation was taken on April 1, 1995. Leave it to cosmic dust and the colorful\u00a0glow of gas clouds to take our breath away.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Eagle Nebula\u2019s Pillars of Creation. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Crab Nebula<\/span><\/h1>\n

Composed from 24 individual exposures, this is one of the largest images ever taken by the Hubble Telescope. The remnants of this supernova explosion span\u00a0six light-years (and if you can wrap your head around that, you\u2019re several steps ahead of me).<\/p>\n

\"Crab
Crab Nebula. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jupiter\u2019s Storm<\/span><\/h1>\n

There are many things to love about Jupiter: it\u2019s massive (and I mean massive\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 1,321 Earths could fit inside of it!), it has 16 moons (how romantic!), and its storm, the Great Red Spot, looks like it\u00a0might as well be an Edvard Munch painting hanging in the MoMA.\u00a0You can see the storm \u2014 practically a giant hurricane \u2014 on the bottom right in the first picture. The storm itself is more than twice the size of Earth, with winds reaching up to\u00a0270 miles an hour. Think about that next time you complain that it’s raining outside…<\/p>\n

\"Jupiter
Jupiter and the Great Red Spot. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Great Red Spot. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Andromeda<\/span><\/h1>\n

Taken in early 2015, this photograph is a cropping of the largest picture ever released by the Hubble. It\u00a0contains over 100 million stars, thousands of star clusters, and 1.5 billion pixels. To view the entire image, you would need over 600 HD TVs. But what’s even more breathtaking than that is that the light we’re seeing from these stars was actually\u00a02.54 million<\/em> years ago. Try peppering that into your next late-night existential star-gazing conversation!<\/p>\n

\"Andromeda
Andromeda. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earth and Moon<\/span><\/h1>\n

While this photograph might not seem as impressive as some of the others, it was the first ever long-distance picture of both the Earth and moon together, taken in 1977, a couple weeks after Voyager 1 launched on its way to Jupiter.<\/p>\n

\"Earth
Earth and moon. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nebula in Orion<\/span><\/h1>\n

Sometimes space looks like a really dreamy place. Using Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, the Heritage astronomers were able to capture this color image just weeks after the Hubble Space Telescope was repaired in 1999.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Reflection Nebula in Orion. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rings of Saturn<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

Saturn has always been one of my favorite planets. I like to think that the rings,\u00a0made up of chunks of ice and dust, inspired one of Beyonce’s greatest lyrics, “If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it.” Well, someone liked Saturn a whole lot (and we don’t blame them).<\/p>\n

\"Saturn
Saturn. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Rings
Rings of Saturn. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Antennae Galaxies<\/span><\/h1>\n

Galaxies making love, not war. This photograph depicts the merging of the Antennae Galaxies. As these two galaxies collide and combine, billions of new stars are born.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Antennae
Antennae Galaxies. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Messier 17<\/span><\/h1>\n

While this image looks like a renaissance depiction of a raging sea, it’s actually a bubbling ocean of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphuric gas in the molecular nebula Messier 17. Also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, it is a hotbed for star births 5,500 light years away in the Sagittarius constellation.\u00a0Red corresponds to\u00a0sulphur, green represents hydrogen, and blue is good ol’ oxygen emission. This is color by number on a whole new level!<\/p>\n

\"Messier
Messier 17. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Horsehead Nebula<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

With a shape that resembles a giant seahorse, the Horsehead Nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the sky. It’s basically the Kim Kardashian of space. Radiation from this hot star is eroding the stellar nursery, whatever that means.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Horsehead Nebula. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Globular Clusters<\/span><\/h1>\n

47 Tucanae, part of the Toucan constellation in the southern sky, is one of the brightest globular clusters, comprised of hundred of thousands of stars that are held together by\u00a0their mutual gravitation attraction. To\u00a0the naked eye, this cluster would look like a teeny tiny star in the night sky, but it is anything but. The easily-visible red giants are stars with a similar mass to our own sun that are nearing the end of their life. The dimmer stars \u2014 the dying ones \u2014 migrate away from the bright center. It wasn’t until they discovered 47 Tucanae that astronomers saw this process in action.<\/p>\n

\"Stellar
Globular Cluster. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"47
47 Tucanae. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The\u00a0Carina Nebula<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

These photographs are\u00a0of the tempestuous Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years away from us. It’s hard to understand what creates these fantasy landscapes: this image is comprised of\u00a0dust and gas, fast\u00a0winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars. The first photograph shows only the tip of a pillar that is three light-years long. Massive stars with streams of charged particles are causing new stars to form within this pillar (don’t ask me to explain this in more detail).<\/p>\n

\"Carina
Carina Nebula 2. Photo courtesy of Nasa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Carina
Carina Nebula. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Eagle Nebula<\/span><\/h1>\n

This soaring tower of gas and dust spans 9.5 light-years. Or, to put this in terms we can understand, it’s about 90 trillion kilometers high. That’s twice the distance from our sun to the next nearest star. This tower, rising out of a stellar nursery known as the Eagle Nebula, is a huge incubator for newborn stars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"The
The Eagle Nebula. Photo courtesy of NASA,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But nothing \u2014 not billowing pillars or colliding galaxies, nebulas or globular clusters \u2014 takes my breath away quite like home. This photo of our dear planet was taken from Apollo 17, and it reminds me that we live on a little blue dot, orbiting through infinite space, and we are all in this together.<\/p>\n

\"Planet
Planet Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While many\u00a0phenomena in our galaxy are invisible\u00a0to the naked\u00a0eye, we know some of you have what it takes to create spectacular interstellar photographs using the PicsArt photo editor<\/a>. Grab a space shot from our @freetoedit<\/a> account and show us your best edits with the\u00a0hashtag #OutOfThisWorld!<\/i><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut and travel into space (then I grew up and realized how much math is involved, and quickly changed my mind). Something about the unknown, the colors, the mystery and the sheer magnitude always drew me in \u2014 it still does. Space never … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Celebrate Space Day With These Breathtaking Photographs That Are Out of This World”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_title":"Celebrate Space Day With These Breathtaking Photographs","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Billowing pillars and colliding galaxies, nebulas and globular clusters, this space photography from NASA is bound to inspire awe and spark 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This image shows the pillars as seen in visible light, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants\u2019 trunks of the nebula\u2019s famous pillars. The dust and gas in the pillars is seared by the intense radiation from young stars and eroded by strong winds from massive nearby stars. 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