The Week in Space

May 14-20, 2012

Monkey Nebula   NGC 2467 is an active stellar nursery in the southern constellation of Puppis (the Stern). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas. This image, looking like a colorful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill’s face, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (center) and Haffner 19 (middle right, inside the larger pink “eye” of the Mandrill), as well as vast areas of ionized gas. The bright star at the center of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping to shape the structure of the whole nebular region.  This image was taken with the Wide-Field Imager on the 2.2-meter (86-inch) MPG/ESO telescope located at La Silla, in Chile.

Image credit: European Southern Observatory

Weekly Calendar

May 14-20, 2012

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 14

Tuesday 15

Pallas 0.8° north of Moon
Venus appears stationary

1958: Sputnik 3 launched
1963: Faith 7 launched, last Mercury program flight
1997: STS-84 Atlantis launched, sixth Mir docking mission

Wednesday 16

Uranus 6° south of Moon

Thursday 17

Ascension Day

Friday 18

Saturday 19

Moon at apogee
Juno at opposition

1965: Apollo A-003 launched
1996: STS-77 Endeavour launched
2000: STS-101 Atlantis launched

Sunday 20

New Moon 7:47 PM ET

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