Space Pictures This Week: Cigar Galaxy, Speedy Star
Auroras dance, a speedy star leaves a bow shock in its wake, and Martian dunes glimmer in this week's roundup of best space pictures.
Looking to get away from it all? How about a trip to Bouvet Island, seen in the above satellite image released on February 26 by NASA.
Prepare for a long trip if you go to this South Atlantic island owned by Norway. The nearest inhabited island is the British territory of Tristan da Cunha, about 1,400 miles (2,260 kilometers) away. (See National Geographic's top ten islands.)
According to NASA, the island is the southernmost part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the underwater mountain range that divides the African and South American tectonic plates.
As the speedy star Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905, zips through the cosmos, it leaves a streaky red glow of material, as seen in this February 20
