Huge cloud pillars reaching the universe

The appearance of a giant cumulus cloud in Colombia's sky is one of the most impressive astronomical scenes of the week.

Astronauts on the International Space Station capture the scene of a giant cumulus cloud in Colombia last weekend. In the picture the cloud column seems to want to reach the universe. Cumulonimbus clouds often appear before storms. Photo: NASA.

Red radiation comes from newly formed stars in the spiral galaxy NGC 6503. This galaxy is small and about 17 million light-years from Earth. Photo: NASA.

The US Cassini spacecraft captured the scene of ice spewing out from Saturn's Enceladus satellite. The phenomenon of ice spraying on satellites has been discovered since 2005. Scientists identify water that can exist beneath the surface of Enceladus. Photo: NASA.

Round wheat fields and fruit orchards in Spain's autonomous regions of Aragon and Catalonia create an amazingly picturesque spectacle. Round gardens and fields are created when farmers use a rotating sprinkler system to irrigate plants. Photo: ESA.

The Southern European Observatory's telescope in Chile captured the image of two twisted galaxies merging together. Astronomers say they began to collide with each other 300 million million years ago. The merger process is incomplete because the two galaxies' cores haven't met yet. Photo: ESO.

The Soyuz spacecraft astronaut TMA-19 after the ship landed on Kazakhstan last week. Photo: AP.