These are the 10 most beautiful satellite images of 2021

Traditionally, we close the year with a list of the most beautiful photos of space. What are the most beautiful space pictures this year? Over 900 visitors chose the following 10 photos.

In this article we go back from No. 10 to No. 1. The higher ranked photos received better reviews from visitors and are therefore higher on the list.

Off the list: spiral galaxy NGC 1317

NGC 1317 is a small spiral galaxy located 55 million light-years from Earth. this galaxy Next to NGC 1316 “Big Brother”. NGC 1316 swallowed a spiral galaxy three billion years ago. NGC 1316 and NGC 1317 are members of a club called the “Local Group,” which also includes the Milky Way. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 1317 finished outside the top ten.

#10 NGC 6397 . Globular Cluster

The making of the Hubble Space Telescope Beautiful picture of these cosmic gems. Here we see the globular cluster NGC 6397 at a distance of 7,800 light-years from Earth. Blue stars are nearing the end of their lives. They burned all the hydrogen and are now burning their helium supplies. At higher temperatures, helium fuses, making stars appear blue. Red stars are giant stars, while small white stars are sun-like stars.

#9 Solar Eclipse in Holland

This year there was a solar eclipse in the Benelux. On June 10, the moon partially passed in front of the sun, and partially blocked out the sun. The Dutch and Belgians wearing eclipse glasses saw a bite taken from the sun. Rene Bremer captured this unique event and at the same time photos of a plane, the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner. This relates to flight UA90 from New York to Tel Aviv. Nice photo that puts it at number 9 in the final list. See more photos of the solar eclipse at Scientias.nl.

#8 NGC 4254

Spiral galaxy NGC 4254 was imaged earlier this year by the Multi-Unit Spectrograph Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This galaxy is located 45 million light years from Earth. The spiral arms give off a golden glow that comes from clouds of ionized hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. This is where young stars are born.

#7 Super Nuvariant 1E 0102.2-7219

Over a thousand years ago, a massive star exploded in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a neighboring galaxy. The remnant of the star was photographed this year by the Hubble Space Telescope and is in seventh place in the final list for 2021. The remnant of the supernova 1E 0102.2-7219 is 202,000 light-years from Earth and was only discovered in 1981.

#6 NGC 1300

NGC 1300 is located 61 million light-years away. Above, recordings from MUSE and ALMA have been combined. ALMA observations are mainly reflected in the orange-brown hues that reveal the presence of cold gas. MUSE is responsible for the golden and blue hues, with good glow denoting newborn stars and blue representing older stars. Also check out other images of galaxies.

#5 The center of our Milky Way galaxy

The US space agency has this year We have released a special panorama of the center of our galaxy. The center of the Milky Way is located 26,000 light years from Earth. The cosmic masterpiece was created by combining data from the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The mosaic is the result of 370 Chandra observations from 1999 to 2019. In total, it is 1,555 hours and 26 minutes of observations, which amounts to over 64 days. The center of our Milky Way galaxy is a cosmic network of hot gas and magnetic fields. In the middle is a supermassive black hole.

#4 Jupiter with three wavelengths

Scientists have Stunning new images of Jupiter have been released. In the images, the gas giant shines in three different wavelengths of light, giving us a unique look at the turbulent atmosphere of the largest planet in our solar system. The visible and ultraviolet images were captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, while Gemini North’s Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument handled the infrared images. All photos were taken at exactly the same time.

#3 NGC 2276

Hubble Space Telescope Take a sharp picture of NGC 2276 this year. At first glance, NGC 2276 looks like a beautiful spiral galaxy, but a closer look reveals extended spiral arms and giant star-forming regions. This galaxy is 120 million light years from Earth. Many stars are born in the spiral arms of the spiral galaxy.

#2 Ster AG Carinae

Hubble celebrated its 31st birthday with this beautiful image of AG Carinae. This is one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. Fragments of gas and dust, recently emerging from the star, are visible around the star. AG Carinae is a few million years old, but will die soon. By comparison, our Sun is more efficient with respect to its fuel, and therefore has a life span of about ten billion years (of which 4.5 billion years have passed now).

The star is currently called the bright blue variable. Such a supergiant emits more than 100,000 times as much light per unit time as the Sun. Scientists believe that AG Carinae will become a Wolf-Rayet star in the near future. Wolf-Rayet stars lose mass due to strong stellar winds. They live for a very short time and explode into a supernova or hypernova. Eventually, a black hole will likely be left behind.

#1 Stellar Nursery AFGL 5180

In this Hubble image, we see new stars being born. This stellar nursery is called AFGL 5180 and can be found in the constellation Gemini. Stars form from shrinking gas clouds (nebulae) that can be several light years – the distance light travels in a year – on a large scale. The collapse occurs under the influence of its own weight and gravity. This process can take hundreds of thousands of years. Read what a star’s life looks like (from cradle to grave).

With an average of 8.4 points, the AFGL 5180 was voted as the best satellite image of 2021. Great achievement!