2000 Images
Angry Solar Cycle
Visit the PAO Solar Max Cycle page about the peak of the 11-year solar cycle.
2000 December
SOHO's Birthday Flare
In celebration of the birthday of its most diligent watcher, the Sun has let loose an unusual and quick-fire series of eruptions during the past few days. Saturday (Dec. 2) will be the 5th anniversary of SOHO's launch into space, on 2 December 1995.
26 November 2000
26 September 2000
(Details)
07 September 2000
To the surprise and delight of astronomers, the Hubble telescope discovered a small armada of "mini-comets" left behind from what some scientists had prematurely thought was a total disintegration of the explosive Comet LINEAR. In one observation, Hubble's powerful vision has settled the fate of the mysteriously vanished solid nucleus of Comet LINEAR, which was reported "missing in action" following its passage around the Sun on July 26. Though comets have been known to break apart and vanish before, for the first time astronomers are getting a close-up view of the dismantling of a comet's nucleus due to warming by the Sun. The results support the popular theory that comet nuclei are really made up of a cluster of smaller icy bodies called "cometesimals."
Credit: NASA, Harold Weaver (the Johns Hopkins University), the HST Comet LINEAR Investigation Team, and the University of Hawaii
08 August 2000
Black Hole Winds, Fueled by the Force of Light, Blow Matter Away from Impending Doom
(Details)
Click on pic to see a movie of the black hole. Click here for press release images, and additional information on the explosion of the black hole.
17 July 2000
Water on Mars??
22 June 2000
15 May 2000
The Glowing Eye of NGC 6751
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have obtained images of the strikingly unusual planetary nebula, NGC 6751. Glowing in the constellation Aquila like a giant eye, the nebula is a cloud of gas ejected several thousand years ago from the hot star visible in its center.
"Planetary nebulae" are named after their round shapes as seen visually in small telescopes, and have nothing else to do with planets. They are shells of gas thrown off by stars of masses similar to that of our own Sun, when the stars are nearing the ends of their lives. The loss of the outer layers of the star into space exposes the hot stellar core, whose strong ultraviolet radiation then causes the ejected gas to fluoresce as the planetary nebula. Our own Sun is predicted to eject its planetary nebula some 6 billion years from now.
04 April 2000
HUBBLE FINDS YOUNG STARS IN COSMIC DANCE
A trio of newborn stars, 1,400 light-years away are taking part in a complex dance, as revealed by recent NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations. Two are now closely embracing each other, while the third has parted from their company.
The new HST images in infrared light, combined with ground-based radio observations, reveal three young stars. These stars are located near a huge torus, or donut, of gas and dust from which they formed.
For the full text of the press release, click here.
16 March 2000
View Inside Mars Reveals Rapid Cooling and Buried Channels
By combining highly accurate topographic maps with new plots of the planet’s gravitational field, researchers have developed a working draft of what the planet’s interior looks like several kilometers below the surface. This map shows the "moho", the area where the planet’s crust borders its mantle. For a higher res image of this picture, named cutaway.tif go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/newsmedia/mars/channels/ |
Evidence suggests that rapid heat flow in the Northern Hemisphere produced a wide lowland area, encouraging the formation of channels, which could have sluiced water resources into a large basin, even an early ocean. Shown in this image is one such channel, draining from the giant Valles Marineris into the wide, flat area of the north. For a high resolution image of this picture named , please go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp/newsmedia/mars/channels/ |
For more details, visit the Mars Channel homepage
09 March 2000
Flashy Sun Makes Eros Blush for Scientists Using NEAR -- For more details
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10 March 2000
16 February 2000
14 February 2000
03 February 2000
 
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The Lunar Eclipse on Jan. 20, 2000 produced spectacular images. These were taken by Fred Espenak of the Goddard Space Flight Center. |
10 January 2000 |
HETE Burst Alert Network One of the key features of the HETE-2 satellite is its ability to calculate precise localizations of GRBs on board within seconds of burst onset, and then to transmit the burst localizations to the ground as soon as they have been calculated. The HETE-2 satellite utilizes a low-rate VHF transmitter to continuously broadcast the burst information; on the ground, an array of listen-only secondary ground stations receive the data and transmit them to the MIT Control Center. Once received at MIT, burst information are immediately relayed to the GRB Coordinate Distribution Network at the Goddard Space Flight Center for distribution to interested ground observers. http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/ |
05 January 2000 |
IMAGE to Be Launched March 25, 2000 IMAGE is a MIDEX mission, selected by NASA in 1996, to study the global response of the Earth's magnetosphere to changes in the solar wind. |
05 January 2000 |
This photo which appeared on the Goddard Website frontpage on January 5, 2000 shows the HETE II being loaded onto the Pegasus rocket which launches it into orbit. |
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Last Revised: 2000 December
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Curator: Lynn A. Jenner
Author: Darlene A. Ahalt
Responsible NASA Official: Janet K. Ruff
