Best Space Photos of the Week - Feb. 25, 2012

By published

Comet Garradd & Star Cluster M92

Conrad Jung/Chabot Space & Science Center

A comet and a sparkly star cluster shined bright together this month in a space rendezvous captured by an astronomer in California.

The cosmic close encounter featured the comet Garradd and bright globular star cluster M92. It was photographed by astronomer Conrad Jung with the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, Calif. [Full Story]

Markarian Chain

Larry Van Vleet

This stunning image by skywatcher Larry Van Vleet is of Markarian's Chain, a stretch of galaxies in the Virgo cluster. [Full Story]

The galaxies are said to be in a smooth, curved line making them appear to be connected in a chain. Located about 70 million light-years away, the Virgo cluster is a large collection of some 2,000 galaxies that dominate our part of the universe. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.