Space Image of the Day Gallery (January 2015)

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I'm Being Followed By Moon Shadows

Efrain Morales Rivera

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015: Astrophotographer Efrain Morales Rivera of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, sent in a composite photo showing the rare triple shadow transit of Jupiter's moons, Io, Callisto and Europa, on Jan. 24, 2015. These transits occur when the natural satellites of Jupiter pass in front of the sun, as seen from the planet. When the larger Galilean satellites do so, their shadows can be seen from Earth. A triple shadow transit occurs on Jupiter only about once or twice a decade, on average, and the next one will occur in 2032. The smaller photos in the image show the progression of the event, starting at the left and moving clockwise.

— Tom Chao

Spaceballs

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Friday, Jan. 30, 2015: Star-forming features nicknamed "yellowballs" appear in the center of this image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The yellow balls form during the creation of massive stars before they carve out cavities in the surrounding gas and dust (appearing as green-rimmed bubbles with red interiors here). The yellow balls stretch several hundred to thousands of times the size of our solar system. Image released Jan. 27, 2015.

— 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+.