Image of the Day: August 2011

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What's New, Buenos Aires?

Ron Garan (via Twitter as @Astro_Ron)

Monday, August 29, 2011: On Saturday, August 27, 2011, Astronaut Ron Garan pointed his HD camera at the rising sun as the International Space Station flew along a path between Rio de Janeiro in Brazil & Buenos Aires in Argentina. The choice of location was made by an online vote.

— Tom Chao

Step Up to the Barred Spiral Galaxy

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum

Tuesday, August 30, 2011: The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii sees the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2903 almost face-on in this photograph. The central bulge glows yellow with older stars, while the spiral arms contain younger stars as determined by their blue color, and star formation regions of red.

— Tom Chao

Ice Ice Baby

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Wednesday, August 31, 2011: The Mars Express High-Resolution Stereo Camera captured this image on 17 May 2010, showing a part of the northern polar region of Mars at the northern hemisphere summer solstice. At this point in the Martian year all of the carbon dioxide ice has warmed and evaporated into the planet’s atmosphere. Only water ice is left behind, which shows up as bright white areas in this picture. [Please click the image to see a larger version.]

— Tom Chao

Tom Chao
Tom Chao
Tom Chao has contributed to SPACE.com as a producer and writer since 2000. As a writer and editor, he has worked for the Voyager Company, Time Inc. New Media, HarperCollins and Worth Publishers. He has a bachelor’s degree in Cinema Production from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Tom on Google+.