Dust mite

As Darkness Falls
by Colin H. Sillerud

Galaxy NGC 3521

  

This picture of the nearby galaxy NGC 3521 was taken using the FORS1 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The large spiral galaxy lies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), and is only 35 million light-years distant. This picture was created from exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light, yellow/green light, and near-infrared light. These are shown in this picture as blue, green, and red, respectively.

Undulatus Asperatus
by AnneMarie Putman

Dark Matter

A Volcanic View of Mercury

Here on Earth we’re used to seeing volcanoes as towering mountains with steam-belching peaks or enormous fissures oozing lava. But on Mercury volcanic features often take the form of deep, sunken pits surrounded by bright reflective material. They look like craters but are more irregularly-shaped, and here we have a view from MESSENGER of a cluster of them amidst a rugged landscape that stretches all the way to the planet’s limb.

The image shows a group of pyroclastic vents on Mercury, located just north and east of the 180-mile (290-km) -wide, double-ringed Rachmaninoff crater. The vents lie in the center of a spread of high-reflectance material, sprayed out by ancient eruptions.

An older vent can be seen at the bottom right, looking like a crater but with non-circular walls.

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