Gaze

5 stunning space photos of the week

by JoAnna Wendel
Shutterstock

Three telescopes teamed up to capture this image of galaxies colliding. This system is known as Abell 2384.

NASA/CXC/SAO/V.Parekh, et al.; ESA/XMM; NCRA/GMRT

This sunlit rock is Bennu, an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building orbiting the Sun about 100 million miles from Earth. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is currently studying Bennu and getting ready to collect and send a sample back to Earth.

NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Here’s what Earth looks like from Mars. NASA’s Curiosity Rover captured this image after its first year on Mars.

NASA

This newly reprocessed image of Jupiter’s moon Europa shows the blocky “chaos terrain,” made up of small domes and disrupted spaces. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft originally captured this image in 1998.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

This year marks the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30th year in operation. This image shows two nebulae, NGC 2000 (lower left) and NGC 2014 (upper right).

Hubble Space Telescope