Photo universe impressive week

Geminid meteor streaks plunge into the desert, stars glowing blue. The universe in the past week shone through the image of National Geographic.

Like the silver spear falling from the universe, the meteor streak in the image appeared above the Mojave desert in California, USA on December 13 evening. This is just one of thousands of light trails in the Geminid meteor shower earlier this week.

Astronomers have assembled many photos to create the latest image of the young constellation named R136. This brilliant constellation is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy near the Milky Way. Hydrogen clouds (red) and oxygen clouds (green) surround blue dots sparkling like diamonds. Those blue dots are extremely large stars, with several hundred times the mass of the sun.

Two photos of Satetus satellite of Saturn. Astronomers discovered that a hemisphere of this satellite is darker than the other hemisphere because there are more red tape and dust. 300 years ago scientists realized the dual-sided phenomenon had different brightness, but until recently its cause was discovered.

Latest and sharpest image of the Flame Nebula sent by VISTA telescope. This telescope, built by the Southern European Observatory, has been operating since the beginning of the week. Its camera weighs three tons and can capture both visible light and infrared rays. Thus, VISTA can "see" through clouds of gas and dust in the universe to capture newborn stars and celestial bodies far away from the earth.

Each square in the image above has a disk of gas dust around a newborn star in the Orion Nebula. Over time the gas dust around the star will concentrate and form a new object. Orion is the nearest star-making region that humans can see with their eyes because the stars inside it are large enough to heat the surrounding dust and gas. 30 discs of gas dust in the picture are among the 42 discs that the Hubble Space Telescope captured for years.