10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

Amazing Space Photos

From a photo of a mysterious object spotted orbiting Earth to a picture of a star system that looks like the eye of Sauron we take a look at 10 mysterious photos taken in space.

 

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10. Black Knight Satellite

The mysterious Black Knight spaceship - 10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

Express

In 1998 a series of photographs taken by NASA revealed something unusual in Earth’s orbit. Thought by many to be a satellite of extraterrestrial origin some believe this mysterious object may have been orbiting Earth for more than 13 000 years. Some think that radio waves heard by Nikola Tesla in an 1899 experiment may have been emitted by this ‘alien’ satellite. Others believe that the mysterious object is nothing more than a thermal blanket reported lost during a spacewalk conducted by U.S. Astronauts Jerry Ross and James Newman.

9. The Heart Of The Universe

The Crab nebula - 10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

Wolaver

This image of the Crab Nebula was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999 and 2000. The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a giant star that ended in a supernova explosion nearly 1000 years ago. The supernova was so bright that it was seen and recorded by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054, making it the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion. The Crab Nebula cannot be seen with the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars in good conditions.

The nebula gets its name from the 3rd Earl of Rosse, William Parsons who, in 1840 observed the object through a telescope and produced a drawing that many thought looked like a crab.

8. Crab Creature Spotted On Mars

A mysterious creature spotted on Mars - 10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

Mirror

An image taken on Mars by NASA in 2015 had many believing it was proof of life on the red planet. A closeup of the side of a rock wall revealed a shape that some think resembles a crab-like creature. Despite the initial internet buzz, a senior astronomer at the Center for SETI Research said the ‘space crab’ was something else entirely. He believed it could be explained by a phenomenon known as pareidolia. Pareidolia is the brain’s ability to see shapes in random objects like a face in the moon or a dog in the clouds.

The object does however, look out of place in the harsh, rocky landscape. What do you think? Alien creature or just our brains playing tricks on us?

7. ‘Eye Of Sauron’ Star System

The Fomalhaut System - 10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

Seti Institute

Fomalhaut is one of the most visible stars in the night’s sky and the brightest star in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus. The star and its surrounding system bare an eerie resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from the Lord Of The Rings films.

Within this system is an extrasolar object, thought to be a planet known as Fomalhaut b or Dagon. This planet has a very unusual, highly elliptical orbit. It has an orbit of nearly 2000 years coming as close as 4.6 billion miles to its star and at its outermost point it, 27 billion miles away from its star. Scientists believe that this strange orbit may be a result of a yet undiscovered planet that gravitationally ejected Fomalhaut b from a more circular orbit at some point in time. The unusual orbit takes Fomalhaut b through the system’s outer dust ring where it spends around 1000 years in deep freeze before returning into the system.

Scientists also believe that the reason this planet is unusually bright is that as it returns through the system’s outer dust ring, any satellites orbiting the planet would suffer great impact from surrounding objects, creating a dust cloud that reflects starlight, similar to the ring of Saturn.

6. Faces On Mars

Face on Mars - 10 Mysterious Photos Taken In Space

NASA Science

When the Viking 1 spacecraft took a series of images of the surface of Mars, one in particular caught the eye of astronomers. The photo, which was released by NASA in 1976 is of an area known as Cydonia and it seems to show a large humanoid face carved into the mesa. While experts dismissed the image as an illusion of light and poor photo quality, many have argued that this image proves there was life on Mars at some point in time.

Many successive spacecraft have photographed the area with gradually improving resolution leading NASA to state that “a detailed analysis of multiple images of this feature reveals a natural looking Martian hill whose illusory face-like appearance depends on the viewing angle and angle of illumination.”

What do you think? A face or just our peepers playing tricks on us?

 

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