WMAP Infant Universe Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: Infant Universe W2003-064 NASA today released the best "baby picture" of the Universe ever taken; the image contains such stunning detail that it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent years. Scientists using NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), during a sweeping 12-month observation of the entire sky, captured the new cosmic portrait, capturing the afterglow of the big bang, called the cosmic microwave background. "We've captured the infant universe in sharp focus, and from this portrait we can now describe the universe with unprecedented accuracy," said Dr. Charles L. Bennett of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt Md., and the WMAP Principal Investigator. "The data are solid, a real gold mine," he said. One of the biggest surprises revealed in the data is the first generation of stars to shine in the universe first ignited only 200 million years after the big bang, much earlier than many scientists had expected. In addition, the new portrait precisely pegs the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a remarkably small one percent margin of error. The WMAP team found that the big bang and Inflation theories continue to ring true. February 11, 2003 Credits: WMAP is named in honor of David Wilkinson of Princeton University, a world-renown cosmologist and WMAP team member who died in September 2002. Launched on June 30, 2001, WMAP maintains a distant orbit about the second Lagrange Point, or "L2," a million miles from Earth. WMAP is the result of a partnership between the GSFC and Princeton University. Additional Science Team members are located at Brown University, Providence R.I., the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, the University of Chicago, and the University of California, Los Angeles. WMAP is part of the Explorer program, managed by GSFC. Lowest New Price: $33.60 - Total New: 2
	Apollo 17 Crescent Earthrise Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: AS17-152-23272 December 1972 The crescent Earth rises above the lunar horizon in this photograph taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft in lunar-orbit during National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) final lunar landing mission in the Apollo program. While astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, commander, and Harrison H. Schmitt, lunar module pilot, descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Challenger" to explore the Taurus-Littrow region of the Moon, astronaut Ronald E. Evans, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "America" in lunar orbit. Credit: NASA JSC Lowest New Price: $18.90 - Total New: 2
	Apollo 11 Earthrise Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: View of the Earth from the Command Module Columbia. This picture was taken July 20th, 1969 shortly after Earthrise as Columbia was passing over Mare Smythii. In looking at Earth, Australia is at the left. July 20, 1969 Credit: NASA JSC Lowest New Price: $18.90 - Total New: 1
	Pale Blue Dot Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification. Creation Date: June 6, 1990 Credits: JPL/NASA Lowest New Price: $18.90 - Total New: 1
	Hubble Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. This sharpest-ever image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure. 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 which 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. Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool's arms are so prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool's arms. At first glance, the compact galaxy appears to be tugging on the arm. Hubble's clear view, however, shows that NGC 5195 is passing behind the Whirlpool. The small galaxy has been gliding past the Whirlpool for hundreds of millions of years. April 25, 2005 Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Lowest New Price: $76.99 - Total New: 1
	2MASS Infrared Milky Way Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: The Infrared Milky Way This panoramic view encompasses the entire sky as seen by Two Micron All-Sky Survey. The measured brightnesses of half a billion stars (points) have been combined into colors representing three distinct wavelengths of infrared light: blue at 1.2 microns, green at 1.6 microns microns, and red at 2.2 microns. This image is centered on the core of our own Milky Way galaxy, toward the constellation of Sagittarius. The reddish stars seemingly hovering in the middle of the Milky Way's disc -- many of them never observed before -- trace the densest dust clouds in our galaxy. The two faint smudges seen in the lower right quadrant are our neighboring galaxies, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Credits: University of Massachusetts, IR Processing & Analysis Center, Cal Tech, NASA Lowest New Price: $285.60 - Total New: 1
	2TV-1 Crew Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: The crew of Block II Thermal Vacuum Test Article (2TV-1), astronauts Joe Kerwin , Vance Brand, and Joe Engle emerge from the spacecraft and the JSC vacuum chamber after 177 hours of their simulated mission. Date Taken/Released: June, 1968 Credit: NASA Photo - courtesy of Ed Hengeveld Lowest New Price: $76.99 - Total New: 1
	3C294 Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: Credits: NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory Center Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Lowest New Price: $92.40 - Total New: 1
	Abell 2104 Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: Abell 2104 - Cluster of galaxies 2 billion light years from Earth. Chandra's observation of A2104 revealed six bright X-ray sources due to active supermassive black holes located in red galaxies. This surprised astronomers, because powerful X-ray emission from black holes requires large supplies of interstellar gas to feed the black holes, and red galaxies -- composed of older stars - are thought to have a sparse supply of gas. One possibility is that a galaxy can retain a supply of gas and dust deep in its core near the supermassive black hole, even in the harsh environment of a galaxy cluster. September 13, 2002 Credits: NASA/CXC/P.Martini et al. CXC operated for NASA by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Lowest New Price: $64.40 - Total New: 4
	Abell 2597 Photo Price: Visit top link for price Editorial Review: Abell 2597 - A cluster of galaxies about a billion light years from Earth, located in the constellation Aquarius. The Chandra image of Abell 2597 revealed a vast cloud of hot gas with two dark cavities - upper left and lower right - about 100,000 light years from the bright center of the cluster. These so-called ghost cavities are thought to be 100 million-year-old relics of an ancient eruption that originated around a supermassive black hole in the core of a centrally located galaxy. Though dim, the cavities contain a mixture of very hot gas, high-energy particles, and magnetic fields - otherwise they would have collapsed under the pressure of the surrounding hot gas. If dozens of these cavities were created over the life of the cluster, they could explain the surprisingly January 08, 2002 Credits: NASA/CXC/Ohio U/B.McNamara et al. CXC operated for NASA by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Lowest New Price: $176.40 - Total New: 1