PIX4632384: Bathymetric and Topographic Map of the Earth. - Bathymetric and Topographic Map of the Earth. - Bathymetric and Topographic Map of the Earth. Image made from radar data. The topography of the seabed was obtained from boat surveys, as well as from data obtained from ERS-1, ERS-2 and Geosat satellites. Altimetric data on the continents come from observations from the ERS-1 satellite. The color code is shown at the bottom of the image: from purple (- 8000m) to white (+ 3000m to+8000m); green 0 to 400 meters altitude / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623608: Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) in Aquarius - Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) - This nebula is located 690 years - light from Earth. Image obtained by Siding Spring's 3.9m telescope This faint object is the nearest planetary nebula to the Sun and on deep photographs has a diameter of about half a degree - - the same apparent size as the Sun in the sky. The AAT colour picture shows the brighter parts of the nebula, revealing various ionization levels within the shell of matter ejected from the central star. This picture was made without unsharp masking. Unsharp masking emphasises the smallest of the radial blobs inside the red shell, which are about 150 astronomical units across (150 times the Earth - Sun distance). These radial streaks give this beautiful object its alternative name, the Sunflower Nebula. The Helix is about 400 light years away, or about 100 times more distant than the nearest stars / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623677: Planetary nebula IC 418 dans le Lievre/HST - IC 418: The “” Spirograph” Nebula Glowing like a multi - faceted jewel, the planetary nebula IC 418 lies about 2,000 light - years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lepus. This photograph is from Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, obtained with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. A planetary nebula represents the final stage in the evolution of a star similar to our Sun. The star at the center of IC 418 was a red giant a few thousand years ago, but then ejected its outer layers into space to form the nebula, which has now expanded to a diameter of about 0.1 light - year. The stellar remnant at the center is the hot core of the red giant, from which ultraviolet radiation floods out into the surrounding gas, causing it to fluoresce. Over the next several thousand years, the nebula will gradually disperse into space, and then the star will cool and fade away for billions of years as a white dwarf. Our own Sun is expected to undergo a similar fate, but fortunately this will not occur until some 5 billion years from now. The Hubble image of IC 418 is shown in a false - color representation, based on Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 exposures taken in February and September, 1999 through filters that isolate light from various chemical elements. Red shows emission from ionized nitrogen (the coolest gas in the nebula, located furthest from the hot nucleus), green shows emission from hydrogen, and blue traces the emission from ionized oxygen (the hottest gas, closest to the central star) / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623916: Planetary nebula ESO 166 - 21 dans les Voiles - The faint planetary nebula ESO 166 - 21 - This planetary nebula was discovered in the rich southern constellation of Vela in 1966, which is why it does not have an NGC number. The 'Ack' designation refers to its identification in the catalogue of planetary nebulae edited by Agnes Acker. This beautifully structured delicate sphere of glowing gas is about 2 arc minutes in diameter and is extremely faint. Both these characteristics have contributed to the conspicuous grain 'noise' in the photograph, and attempts to emphasise the faint nebulosity also bring out the many faint stars in this direction, including the markedly blue central star of visual magnitude 18 which is seen here sandwiched between two other, brighter stars / Bridgeman Images
PIX4632538: Earth - Day and Night - South America - Earth - Day and night - South America - Composite of two images of the Earth, entirely illuminated by the Sun, and of the Earth entirely in darkness, showing the light of inhabited areas. This image of the Earth is a composite of two data images - one of the globe fully illuminated by the Sun, and one of the globe in full darkness, showing only the city lights of inhabited areas / Bridgeman Images
PIX4633123: Ocean level rise - North America - North America with sea level+100m - Artist's view showing North America as it would appear if the ocean level increased by 100 metres. This would happen if all glaciers on Earth melt. This is how North America may appear with mean sea level about 100 meters (330 feet) above today's. Such a dramatic rise in sea level could occur if all of the Earth's glaciers were to melt. In this image the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic ocean have inundated almost all of southeastern United State including the entire state of Florida, almost all of Louisiana, and significant portions of the other southeastern states and the District of Columbia. Major US cities submerged include New York City, Boston and Houston, and on the west coast Los Angeles, San Francisco, and much of San Diego. To the north the Hudson Bay has grown to claim much of the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Nunavut. Further north Greenland's entire ice sheet, 110,000 years old and holding about 700,000 cubic miles of fresh water, has completely melted. A likely cause of a catastrophic melting of the Earth ice stores would be a change in climate, a sudden rise in the global temperature accelerated by a runaway greenhouse effect. While the amount of water held by the Earth's glaciers can be calculated with some accuracy, the exact mechanism that would set those glaciers to melting, and how long it would take for them to melt, is poorly understood. Some models suggest that several millennia of higher temperatures would be required to melt all the world's glaciers, while others predict much faster processes on the scale of centuries, or even decades / Bridgeman Images
PIX4619672: Nebula of the Lagoon (M8) in Sagittarius - The Hourglass Nebula in M8, NGC 6523 - View of the Nebula of the Lagoon (M8/NGC 6523). Located in Sagittarius, at a distance of 5800 years - light, it is visible to the naked eye in good conditions. It is a star-forming region illuminated by several large O-type stars that belong to the open cluster NGC 6530 visible on the left of the image. The brightest part of the nebula is called the hourglass nebula whose gases are excited mainly by two massive supergeant stars Herschel 36 and 9 Sagittarii. At the heart of the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius lies the diminutive Hourglass Nebula. This extremely bright object is associated with the blue star alongside it, named Herschel 36 after its discoverer. Herschel described M8 as 'A noble nebula' and 'a fine and complicated nebula', but he was clearly intrigued by the Hourglass which he compared to the nucleus of the Andromeda nebula, M31 as 'decidedly not stellar'. The tiny bright nebula that captures Herschel's attention is energised partly by the bright star H36 and partly by a star which, for the present, remains hidden in the pinched waist of the Hourglass. The obscured star is only visible in infrared light which can penetrate the thick clouds of dust seen over much of the Lagoon Nebula and clearly evident in a recent Hubble Space Telescope photograph. These stars are probably less than 10,000 years old, about as old as the Hourglass itself, and are evidence of recent star - formation in this very dusty and active region / Bridgeman Images
PIX4629421: Geocentric System of Ptolemee - Ptolemaic Cosmology - Engraving from “Harmonia Macrocosmica” by Andreas Cellarius, 1708. The planisphere of Ptolemy, or the mechanism of the heavenly orbits following the hypothesis of Ptolemy laid out in a planar view. Plate of the Harmonia Macrocosmica of Andreas Cellarius, 1708 / Bridgeman Images
PIX4629516: Geocentric System according to Aratus - Geocentric System - Representation of the geocentric system according to Aratus (Aratos de Soles). Engraving from “Harmonia Macrocosmica” by Andreas Cellarius, 1660-1661. The planisphere of Aratus, or the mechanism of the heavenly orbits following the hypothesis of Aratus laid out in a planar view. Plate of the Harmonia Macrocosmica of Andreas Cellarius, 1660-1661 / Bridgeman Images
PIX4619860: Nebula NGC 6589 - 90 and M24 clusters in sagittarius - B93, B92, M24, NGC 6603, IC 1283/4, NGC 6589/90, NGC 6995 The small Sagittarius star cloud (M24) stredtches across the middle of the frame, under dark nebulae B92 and B93 at top. Open cluster NGC 6603 is near the left side of the frame about 1/3 of the way down. Complex of emission and reflection nebulosity at the bottom of the frame is IC 1283/4, NGC 6589/90, NGC 6995. Composite of two 60 minute exposures on gas - hypersensitized Fujicolor Super HG 400. Taken with an Astro - Physic's 130 EDT f/8 refractor working at f/6 with telecompressor. The first frame was shot on May 8, 1994 at 2:55 am from Sentinel Arizona. The second frame was shot May 9, 1994 at 1:28 am from Massai Point, Arizona. The two original negatives were stacked together physically and then the stack was copied onto Kodak 5072 film. That image was then scanned and digitized and enhanced in Photoshop / Bridgeman Images