Best Space Pictures of 2014: A Year's Delights Courtesy of Starry Nightsมาดูกันต่อครับ

Monkey Head Marks Hubble Milestone
Photograph by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Happy birthday, Hubble. Astronomers snapped this image—released on March 17—of the Monkey Head Nebula in honor of the famous space telescope's 24 years in orbit.
The nebula, formally known as NGC 2174, resides 6,400 light-years away, within the Orion constellation. It's a region known as a stellar nursery, where clouds of gas and dust coalesce to form young stars. (Learn more about star formation.)
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Blowing in the Wind
Photograph by NASA Earth Observatory
Dust from the Sahara swallows Africa in an image released September 21. Astronauts on the International Space Station took the picture as the station passed over Libya.
Saharan dust reaches all corners of the world, fertilizing Amazonian soils, settling on Atlantic coral reefs, and, perhaps, increasing snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. (See "How Dust Might Make Drought Worse (or a Bit Better) in California.")
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High Skies, Deep River
Photograph by NASA/JPL-CALTECH/University of Arizona
International Space Station astronauts snapped an intriguing view of Utah's Green River, a section known as Bowknot Bend. The meandering river (dark blue-green) has cut a canyon nearly a thousand feet deep (305 meters) over many millennia.
The image, released March 14, also caught the contrail of an airplane (white streak, lower left) as it flew over the area. (Learn about life in space on the National Geographic Channel.)
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Ringside Seats Reveal Saturn's Gaps
Photograph by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
One of Saturn's many moons, Tethys, gleams brightly and offers a peek from between the planet's A and F rings, in an image released October 13.
The space between the two rings is known as the Keeler gap, and another smaller moon, Daphnis (not pictured), keeps the area clear of dust and ice. (See "Saturn Moon Harbors Ocean, Raising Possibility of Life.")
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Desert Blooms
Photograph by NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS
Scattered high points on the bed of Australia's Lake Mackay set off blooms of algae and desert plants baked by the sun, as seen by NASA's Terra spacecraft. The ephemeral salt lake is the second largest lake in Australia.
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Mesmerizing Moments Amid Wondrous Whirlpool
Photograph by NASA/CHANDRA X-RAY Observatory Center/Wesleyan University
The Whirlpool galaxy glints with x-ray lights from the neutron stars and black holes blanketing its far-flung arms.
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An Elusive Green Light
Photograph by Yuichi Takasaka, TWAN
The famed northern lights shine across the shores of Pontoon Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories in an image released September 23.
Green is the most common color of this natural phenomenon that has dazzled sky-watchers for millennia. (See more aurora pictures.)
Published December 13, 2014
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เครดิตจาก.....nationalgeographic.com