NASA Goddard Takes Over HuffPost UK's Instagram - A Week Of Stunning Space Pictures

We are excited to announce @NASAGoddard is taking over the @HuffPostUK’s #Instagram feed this week featuring (as always) amazing space images with a slight UK flare. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by posting your favorite images with #NASAHuffPost Caption: Europe from a Million Miles Away Central Europe is toward the top of this image of Earth taken by a NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite with the Sahara Desert to the south, showing the Nile River flowing to the Mediterranean Sea through Egypt. The photographic-quality color image was generated by combining three separate images of the entire Earth taken a few minutes apart. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters -- from ultraviolet to near infrared -- to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these Earth images. The image, taken May 12 from a vantage point one million miles from Earth, was taken by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Credit: NASA #nasagoddard #TakeOver #earth

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on May 15, 2016 at 8:46pm PDT

We've taken over @HuffPostUK's Instagram feed for the whole week, Here is the second installment of our #NASAHuffPost takeover, join in and share your space pictures with us using that hashtag during @NASAGoddard's Instagram collaboration with @HuffPostUK Stargazing from Space - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) see the world at night on every orbit —that’s 16 times each crew day. An astronaut took this broad, short-lens photograph of Earth’s night lights while looking out over the remote reaches of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean. ISS was passing over the island nation of Kiribati at the time, about 2600 kilometers (1,600 miles) south of Hawaii. Knowing the exact time and the location of the ISS, scientists were able to match the star field in the photo to charts describing which stars should have been visible at that moment. They identified the pattern of stars in the photo as our Milky Way galaxy (looking toward its center). The dark patches are dense dust clouds in an inner spiral arm of our galaxy; such clouds can block our view of stars toward the center. The curvature of the Earth crosses the center of the image and is illuminated by a variety of airglow layers in orange, green, and red. Setting stars are visible even through the dense orange-green airglow. The brightest light in the image is a lightning flash that illuminated a large mass of clouds. The flash reflected off the shiny solar arrays of the ISS and back to the camera. The dim equatorial cloud sheet is so extensive that it covers most of the sea surface in this view. Credit: NASA #nasagoddard #NASAHuffPost #TakeOver #ISS #space #nasa #gsfc

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 16, 2016 at 5:22am PDT

We are excited to announce @NASAGoddard is taking over the @HuffPostUK’s #Instagram feed this week featuring (as always) amazing space images with a slight UK flare. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by posting your favorite images with #NASAHuffPost The image below was submitted as part of our #IGTakeover with @HuffPostUK. Tag your #astrophotograhy for a chance to be featured in our @Instagram feed. This is an image shot by James Parker (@JP_Astronomy) of the Orion Nebula on January 21, 2016 at around 2:00 a.m. from his back garden in Northamptonshire UK. This Nebula is one of James’ favorites to observe in the night sky and take pictures of. The image you are looking at was taken with an 8" Celesteon Telescope and a Canon DSLR Camera. The picture consists of two, 30 second exposure shots which were stacked on top of each other and then processed slightly to bring out more color and clarity. Mr. Parker said of this photograph, “This is one of the many images I have taken of the night sky, but this one I am particularly proud of. And I hope you like it too.” We do! Thanks, James! Credit: James Parker (@JP_Astronomy) #NASAHuffPost #IGTakeover #nasagoddard #space

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 16, 2016 at 12:34pm PDT

Thank you for all your submissions during our take over of the @HuffPostUK Instagram by @NASAGoddard keep them coming and tag them #NASAHuffPost This is a lovely submission by Matt Robinson @Astro_Matt27 in Sunderland, England Noctilucent cloud season is near in the UK, this image was captured Every summer, something strange and wonderful happens high above the north pole. Ice crystals begin to cling to the smoky remains of meteors, forming electric-blue clouds with tendrils that ripple hypnotically against the sunset sky. Noctilucent clouds-a.k.a. "NLCs"-are a delight for high-latitude sky watchers, and around the Arctic Circle their season of visibility is always eagerly anticipated. Matt works at the Kielder Observatory in the UK and is an Astrophotographer and science presenter who lives and breathes astronomy. Matt told us that For me inspiring others into astronomy through images and talks is a humbling and immensely fulfilling.” We agree! Thanks for your work, Matt. Credit: Matt Robinson, @Astro_Matt27 #nasagoddard #NASAHuffPostUK #IGtakeover #astrophotography #cloud

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 16, 2016 at 11:19pm PDT

We are excited to announce @NASAGoddard is taking over the @HuffPostUK’s #Instagram feed this week featuring amazing space images with a slight UK flare. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard Instagram account. The image below was submitted as part of our #IGTakeover with @HuffPostUK. Tag your #astrophotograhy for a chance to be featured in our @Instagram feed. This is an image shot by Jaspal Chadha (@Jaspalik) of the M51 Whirlpool Galaxy on April 29, 2015 from London, England. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy that is relatively close to Earth — about 30 million light-years away. It is visible in the northern constellation Canes Venatici, just southeast of the Big Dipper. The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a hallmark of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies possess numerous, loosely shaped arms that make their spiral structure less pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge. Credit: Jaspal Chadha (@Jaspalik) #NASAHuffPost #IGTakeover #nasagoddard #space

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 17, 2016 at 5:36am PDT

The image below was submitted as part of our @NASAGoddard #IGTakeover with @HuffPostUK Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard A stunning entry by @fluxa The Horse Nebula, Alnitak (the bright star) and the Flame Nebula (in the lower corner) are part of the vast Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The bright star Altinak is the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion and is a hot blue supergiant, around 33 times more massive and 20 times bigger than our sun, in a binary star system. It shines energetic ultraviolet light into The Flame knocking electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula appearing like a dark network in the center of the glowing gas. Similarly, the prominent horse head portion of the nebula is really just part of a larger cloud of dust and gases which is visible only because is silhouetted against another brighter nebula. Taken in Barcelona November last year by Juan-Manuel Fluxa

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 17, 2016 at 11:22pm PDT

As part of @nasagoddard's Instagram takeover of @huffpostuk here's a shot of Jupiter submitted by @ethan_chappel "Finished my first of seven photos of Jupiter taken on March 13, 2016. I should have the rest done within the next few days. This was probably the sharpest night of imaging I have ever seen." Join in our collaboration and share your images tag them #NASAHuffPost #Jupiter #Planet #Planets #SolarSystem#Space #Astronomy #Astrophotography#Celestron #CelestronRocks #NASAHuffPost

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 18, 2016 at 8:05am PDT

As part of @nasagoddard's Instagram takeover of @huffpostuk here's a Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite image showing London and southern United Kingdom as it appears at night. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro/space/science images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard page. This image was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP, which includes a “day-night band” that observes light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared. The lights in the Irish Sea, the English Channel, and the North Sea are likely a blend of fishing vessels and flares from offshore oil and gas platforms.

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 18, 2016 at 11:55am PDT

@nasagoddard are taking over @huffpostuk’s Instagram this week here's another great picture by Sarah & Simon Fisher @larlar1971 @simonfisher68 of the waxing gibbous moon taken in Worcestershire, UK "Tonights waxing Moon - so pleased to get a photograph before the cloud rolled in." Conditions: cold and clear, sharp breeze! Seeing was super though. Prime focus single shot, Canon 600D, Maksutov 127mm telescope. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro/space/science images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard page.

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 19, 2016 at 1:45am PDT

We are excited that @NASAGoddard has taken over the @HuffPostUK’s #Instagram feed this week featuring amazing space images with a slight UK flair. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard Instagram account. This beautiful true color image of the United Kingdom was captured at 11:15 UTC (12:15 p.m. local time/London) on May 26, 2012 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies on-board NASA's Terra satellite. Credit: NASA/Goddard/MODIS #nasagoddard #UK #earth #IGTakeover

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 19, 2016 at 6:51am PDT

Mars is looking mighty fine in this portrait nabbed by the Hubble Space Telescope on a near close approach! The Hubble Space Telescope is more well known for its picturesque views of nebulae and galaxies, but it's also useful for studying our own planets, including Mars. Hubble imaged Mars on May 12, 2016 - ten days before Mars would be on the exact opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. Bright, frosty polar caps, and clouds above a vivid, rust-colored landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic seasonal planet in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken on May 12, 2016, when Mars was 50 million miles from Earth. The Hubble image reveals details as small as 20 to 30 miles across. The large, dark region at far right is Syrtis Major Planitia, one of the first features identified on the surface of the planet by seventeenth-century observers. Christiaan Huygens used this feature to measure the rotation rate of Mars. (A Martian day is about 24 hours and 37 minutes.) Today we know that Syrtis Major is an ancient, inactive shield volcano. Late-afternoon clouds surround its summit in this view. A large oval feature to the south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin. About 1,100 miles across and nearly five miles deep, it was formed about 3.5 billion years ago by an asteroid impact. The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region in northern Mars that covers about 2,800 miles. The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest terrains on the planet. Dried river canyons (too small to be seen here) wind through the region and empty into the large northern lowlands. We are excited that @NASAGoddard has taken over the @HuffPostUK’s #Instagram feed this week featuring amazing space images with a slight UK flare. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro images by tagging them #NASAHuffPostand we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard Instagram account. Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Bell (ASU), and M. Wolff (Space Science Institute) #nasagoddard #mars #hubble #space

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 19, 2016 at 11:46am PDT

NASA'a Landsat satellite captures Mount Sourabaya erupting, the first time in 60 years. @nasagoddard's have taken over @huffpostuk's Instagram this week. Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro/space/science images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the@nasagoddard page. If a volcano erupts and there is no one there to see it, did it really erupt? Before the advent of satellites and seismic monitoring, volcanic eruptions in distant places would mostly go unnoticed unless they were absolutely extraordinary. Today, scientists can pick up signatures of events occurring far from any human observers. That was the case in late April and early May 2016 when satellite sensors detected signs of a volcanic eruption in the far South Atlantic Ocean between South America and Antarctica. Mount Sourabaya, a stratovolcano on Bristol Island, appeared to be erupting for the first time in 60 years. There are no human residents of the island, which is almost always covered in glacial ice and snow. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired these two false-color images on April 24 and May 1, 2016. The images were built from a combination of shortwave-infrared, near-infrared, and red light (Landsat bands 6-5-4) that helps detect the heat signatures of an eruption. Both images show the heat signatures (red-orange) of what is likely hot lava, while white plumes trail away from the crater. The band combination makes the ice cover of the island appear bright blue-green. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Landsat

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 20, 2016 at 12:01am PDT

As part of @nasagoddard's takeover of @huffpostuk's Instagram here is a great photo by @pcwilliams has captured the #aurora flying London-NY. Very welcome after a stressful travel day of delayed flights, lost baggage and frantic connections." #NASAHuffPost Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro/space/science images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the@nasagoddard page #NASA #nasagoddard #Astrophotography

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 20, 2016 at 7:22am PDT

Please share your images with us as @NASAGoddard takeover @HUffPostUK's Instagram this week, Follow along and join in with our collaboration by sharing your astro images by tagging them #NASAHuffPost and we will share some of them here and on the @nasagoddard Instagram account. This image by @hannahbella_photography shows the phases of the moon during the Perigee total lunar eclipse. #moon #Bristol #astronomy #astrophotography

A photo posted by Huff Post UK (@huffpostuk) on May 21, 2016 at 11:09am PDT

A revision of my earlier image of the Orion Nebula (M42) and The Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977). There's something incredibly beautiful and poetic about a cloud of dust. This great big nebulous cocoon spreads its beauty across 30-40 light-years in diameter and is giving birth to perhaps a thousand sun-like stars. I took this photo from Barcelona in June 2015. #astrophotography #astronomy #astrophoto #nasahuffpost #igtakeover @huffpostuk #space #nasagoddard

A photo posted by Juan-Manuel Fluxà (@fluxa) on May 17, 2016 at 3:39am PDT

I have been asked by someone from the huffington post to share my favorite Astro image , and here it is. #NASAHuffPost @NASAGoddard @NASAGoddardPix @HuffPostUK #igshotz #big_shotz #hot_shotz #special_shots #infinity_shotz #NightPhotography #igPodium_night #ptk_night #Lazyshutters #nightimages #amazing_longexpo #instagoodmyphoto #Exklusive_shot #inspiring_photography_admired #ig_masterpiece #fantastic_captures #ig_sharepoint #ig_mood #ig_podium #sky_sultans #thebest_capture#ig_global_life

A photo posted by Jennifer Khordi (@jkhordi) on May 17, 2016 at 2:45pm PDT

The Horse Nebula, Alnitak (the bright star) and the Flame Nebula (in the lower corner) are part of the vast Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The bright star Altinak is the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion and is a hot blue supergiant, around 33 times more massive and 20 times bigger than our sun, in a binary star system. It shines energetic ultraviolet light into The Flame knocking electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula appearing like a dark network in the center of the glowing gas. Similarly, the prominent horse head portion of the nebula is really just part of a larger cloud of dust and gases which is visible only because is silhouetted against another brighter nebula. I took this photo from Barcelona in November 2015. #astrophotography #astrophoto #astrophysics #orion #horsehead #flame #night #stars #universe #cosmos #telescope #huffingtonpost #nasahuffpost #igtakeover #nasagoddard @huffpostuk

A photo posted by Juan-Manuel Fluxà (@fluxa) on May 17, 2016 at 2:37pm PDT

Twilight pass of the @iss over the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. This photo was taken in late March while I was on spring break in the southeast corner of Arizona. For three nights, I stayed in a small cottage in one of the darkest skies in the country. When I stepped outside to set up my camera and tripod, I was amazed just how quiet and peaceful a place could be. I was just about as close to the International Space Station as I was to a major city (about 250 miles)! 20 second exposure using a 50mm lens (ISO 100) #spotthestation #NASAHuffPost #Arizona #astrophotography #astronomy #desert

A photo posted by David Cantillo 🔭 (@astro_cantillo) on May 16, 2016 at 6:32pm PDT

Moonlit clouds, deep blue sky and beautiful gentle #aurora @virginatlantic. This shot was only ONE second - ISO 2500, F1.4 - which is why the clouds are quite sharp even though we were moving at 500mph! It was actually pretty bright aurora, visible to the eye out the window. @canonuk #Canon6D with 24mm F1.4 prime (fixed) lens. #universetoday #NASAHuffPost

A photo posted by Paul Williams (@pcwilliams) on Jan 21, 2016 at 2:30am PST

Finished my first of seven photos of Jupiter taken on March 13, 2016. I should have the rest done within the next few days. This was probably the sharpest night of imaging I have ever seen. #Jupiter #Planet #Planets #SolarSystem #Space #Astronomy #Astrophotography #Celestron #CelestronRocks #ZWO #NASAHuffPost

A photo posted by Ethan Chappel (@ethan_chappel) on Mar 15, 2016 at 12:37am PDT

Today, in 2012, the transit of Venus across the sun began. This was the last time a transit would occur until the year 2117. I took this photo at sunset, and you can see Venus as a small black dot on the solar disk. #tbt #Astronomy #Astrophotography #VenusTransit

A photo posted by Neil Winston (@neilwinston) on Jun 5, 2014 at 8:53am PDT

This image shows the portion of sky that spans between the #Pleiades star cluster and the California Nebula's deep red emission. Filaments of dark nebula part of the Perseus molecular cloud can also be seen. This photo is 2.3 hours of exposure taken with a #Canon #60Da from Assateague Island. #astrophotography #deepspace #longexposure #ig_astrophotography

A photo posted by Neil Winston (@neilwinston) on Feb 10, 2016 at 6:56pm PST

Last night I imaged the open star cluster Messier 45 in Taurus, also known as the Pleiades, Seven Sisters or Subaru. This cluster can be easily seen with the naked eye from even heavily light polluted skies. The reflection nebula is known by astronomers to be a dust cloud in the interstellar medium, unrelated to the clusters formation. This image is a 4 hour exposure (16x900s) taken with a #Canon #60Da at ISO 400. Telescope is an @OrionTelescopes ED80 mounted on a #Losmandy G-11. #astrophotography #space #pleiades #universetoday #ig_astrophotography

A photo posted by Neil Winston (@neilwinston) on Nov 15, 2015 at 11:38am PST

This is a photo I took earlier tonight (Jan 9) of #Comet #Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) as it moves across the night sky. Visible are the the comet's bright green coma and complex ion tail. Lovejoy is a very long period comet, and will not return to the inner solar system for another ~8,000 years. This photo is 93 minutes total exposure (31x180s) with a Canon 60Da at a focal length of 510mm. #astrophotography #astronomy

A photo posted by Neil Winston (@neilwinston) on Jan 9, 2015 at 9:57pm PST

The Belt and Sword of #Orion. A little over 2.5 hours of exposure reveals some unfamiliar shapes in this famous Winter constellation, such as the Horsehead, Flame and Orion #Nebula. This photo was taken in Jan 2013, and is a composite of color and H-alpha data. #astrophotography #space #canon #60da #universetoday #ig_astrophotography

A photo posted by Neil Winston (@neilwinston) on Sep 28, 2015 at 8:52pm PDT

In-flight #aurora flying London-NY. Very welcome after a stressful travel day of delayed flights, lost baggage and frantic connections. #NASAHuffPost

A photo posted by Paul Williams (@pcwilliams) on May 8, 2016 at 10:09pm PDT

The Trifid Nebula (M20) is a large star forming region in the constellation of Sagittarius. Its names means"divided in three lobes" and refers to the object consisting in an unusual combination of three types of nebulae and an open cluster of stars. The open cluster is surrounded by an emission nebula (red portion), a reflection nebula (blue portion) and a dark nebula (the apparent gaps within the emission nebula that cause the trifurcated appearance). I took this photo from the light polluted skies of Barcelona in Aug 2015. #astrophotography #astrophysics #m20 #trifidnebula #night #deepsky #stars #universe #cosmos #nasagoddard #nasahuffpost @nasa @nasagoddard @huffpostuk

A photo posted by Juan-Manuel Fluxà (@fluxa) on May 20, 2016 at 12:45am PDT

Taken by Beau Liddell #astrophotography #astrophoto #astrophysics #orion #horsehead #flame #night #stars #universe #cosmos #telescope #huffingtonpost #nasahuffpost #igtakeover #nasagoddard

A photo posted by Astro Photography 🌌 (@astroophotography) on May 18, 2016 at 7:14pm PDT

Great night for taking some shots of the international space station #nexstar6se #internationalspacestation #nexstar #astrophotography#space #nasa#nasahuffpost

A photo posted by Gavin (@gavsto) on Mar 21, 2016 at 5:25am PDT