Lava from a volcano seen from space in January and more incredible images from NASA

The first month of 2024 is coming to an end, but the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), has released stunning new images of 2024. the universe around us.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope and a satellite, space agency astronomers collected new data and released stunning photographs. TecMundo to present some of the cosmic beauties that unfold throughout January brought together the most impressive images published by NASA. Check out!

Arp 122 Galaxy

In early January, the Hubble Space Telescope provided an image of the strange galaxy Arp 122, which hosts two spiral galaxies: NGC 6040 and LEDA 59642. Scientists explain that they are in the process of a collision and merger that could last hundreds of years. It takes millions of years to complete.

Since Arp 122 is located approximately 570 million light-years from Earth, humanity is not at risk of being affected by a future cosmic collision.

Because the merger process disrupts more ordered structures (such as those observed in spiral galaxies), the resulting galaxies are considered to have a regular or elliptical structure. It would be fascinating to know what Arp 122 will look like once this impact is complete… but that won’t happen for a very long time,” explains NASA.

Volcano lava at Reykjanes

In December, the Icelandic Meteorological Office reported that a volcano in the southwestern region of the country had erupted following a series of seismic activity. At that time, almost four thousand residents of the city of Grindavik were evacuated due to its proximity to the volcano. Just a month later The North American space agency released a photo showing an image of the volcano from a satellite in space.

“On January 17, 2024, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured this image of lava flow on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland. “The lava reached the city of Grindavik, which had already been evacuated,” explains NASA.

Spiral galaxy IC 438

At the end of the month, NASA released a statement. Detailed photo of spiral galaxy IC438, located near the constellation Lepus (Rabbit), about 130 million light-years from Earth. According to the space agency, Lepus is one of 88 constellations officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

“It is worth clarifying that although constellations themselves contain only a handful of stars, the area of ​​sky covered by these stars is often referred to by the name of the constellation. “For example, when we say that IC 438 is in Lepus, we do not mean that the galaxy is part of the constellation – perhaps unambiguously, since it is not a single star, but a whole galaxy,” he said in an official statement.

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