Best Space Photos of the Week - Aug. 10, 2013

Lightning as seen from the International Space Station, somewhere over Brazil. [See more images]

For decades, scientists were at a loss to explain the source of the so-called Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas discovered in the early 1970s that extends nearly halfway around the Milky Way. But new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack the case. [Read the Full Story]

August 5, 2013, marked the one-year anniversary of Mars rover Curiosity's arrival on Mars. An image acquired by the rover shows a rise topped by two gray rocks, informally named "Twin Cairns Island." The two gray rocks, combined, stretch about 10 feet (3 meters) wide, as seen from this angle. The rover used its Mast Camera to take the component images of this scene on the 343rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars, July 24, 2013. This photo has been white-balanced to show what the scene would look like under Earth lighting conditions, to aid in distinguishing and recognizing materials in the rocks and soil.

An artist’s depiction of construction along the torus rim of the colonies—one of the three space colony summer studies that were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. [See more images]

Matt Damon stars in Columbia Pictures' "Elysium," opening August 9, 2013. [See more images]

Barbie goes to Mars in 2013 with her career of the year doll. The Mars Explorer Barbie was launched on Aug. 5, 2013 in honor of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's landing on the Red Planet in 2012. [See more images]

Astrophotographer Terry Hancock sent in a photo of Pelican and North American Nebulae (NGC 5067 and NGC 7000), captured over 2 nights, July 24-25, 2013, in H-Alpha. Total exposure time was 5 hours. Hancock's home observatory, DownUnder Observatory, is located in Fremont, MI. [See more images]

The Gemini South telescope in Chile is seen, laser blazing, during laser operations using the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS). The laser-guided advanced optics system cancels out atmospheric turbulence caused by Earth's atmosphere during observations. [See more images]

Beatty Robotics' dad and daughter team pose with their Mars rover. (L to R) Camille, Robert and Genevieve have designed and built numerous robots, including this Mars rover commissioned by the New York Hall of Science. [See more images]

Kate Greene and Dr. Oleg Abramov traverse a lava field on EVA during the 2013 HI-SEAS simulated space mission in Hawaii. [See more images]

An incredible new photo taken by a telescope in the Southern Hemisphere captures an odd couple shimmering beautifully in a star-forming region of a nearby galaxy. [Read the Full Story]

In the 1970s, with the Apollo moon landing program completed and the space shuttle program under development, space planners realized that huge space colonies were feasible. [Read the infographic]

Galaxy Messier 94 (also known as NGC 4736) appeared historically to possess two quite different rings: a brilliant, compact band around the galaxy's core, and a faint, broad swath of stars outside its main disk. Astronomers recently discovered that the outer ring, seen here in a deep blue glow of starlight, might actually be an optical illusion. A new, more complete picture of Messier 94 indicates that two separate spiral arms, from our perspective, take on the appearance of a single, unbroken ring. [See More Images]