Space Photos of the Week: Home Is Where the Supermassive Black Hole Is

Here we see a supermassive black hole “burping” material out into space. Yes, that is the technical turn NASA is using. Black holes are usually dormant until an object gets close. In this case, a galaxy got a bit too cozy with a supermassive black hole named J1354. As the black hole devours its galactic meal, it “burps” out, or ejects, strings of stars and gas.

When comets fly in from the depths of outer space, they swing around the sun and begin their journey back out again. But as this happens, their icy bodies and tails begin to melt, slowing them down. Now, astronomers have captured the fastest comet slow down yet. Comet 41p slowed more than 10 times its speed in just 60 days, a first in the comet records.

You might need sunglasses to look at this picture. Stars, stars everywhere! This twinkling photo is looking towards the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Older red dwarf stars light up this image in glowing crimsons and pinks while the younger, more active stars are seen in white and blue.

Did you know that the International Space Station passes over your head every 90 minutes? While speeding around the planet at 18,000 miles per hour, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov snapped this photo of the Earth departing night and transitioning into day, a stunning sight the astronauts get see every hour and a half.

Hubble has been doing some detective work, and this image is proof. Hidden within this photo of the Orion Nebula is actually the largest collection of brown dwarf stars ever discovered. But that’s not all. While astronomers were examining the image, they also found three large planets. They’ve identified each object with a color coded circle: Red is a planet, orange is a brown dwarf, and yellow is a star.

Welcome to the center of our galaxy! This image is a visualization using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory. The image shows the Milky Way’s galactic center and activity around its core. Lighter red regions are areas of outflowing gas and shockwaves created by active stars, heating gas to millions of degrees. Scientists are also studying how these waves interact with the supermassive black hole that lives in the center of our galaxy.