Butterfly Ejecta

The Butterfly Vent

The ejecta pattern around this northern plains crater is termed butterfly for its similarity to butterfly wings, as shown in this image captured by NASA 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

Hot Dog and Butterfly, Nereidum Montes

Butterfly ejecta is the name given when a crater has two lobes of ejecta on opposite sides, with little or no ejecta between the lobes. This image is from NASA 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

A black swallowtail butterfly enjoys a snack from a blooming lantana plant at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shares boundaries with the refuge, which is home to more than 330 native and migratory bird species, along with 25 mammal, 117 fish, and 65 amphibian and reptile species.

Thistle blooms provide a midday meal for a gulf fritillary butterfly at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shares boundaries with the refuge, which is home to more than 330 native and migratory bird species, along with 25 mammal, 117 fish, and 65 amphibian and reptile species.

What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Officially named W40, the butterfly is a nebula - a giant cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars may form. The butterfly's two "wings" are giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from the hottest, most massive stars in this region. The material that forms W40's wings was ejected from a dense cluster of stars that lies between the wings in the image. The hottest, most massive of these stars, W40 IRS 1a, lies near the center of the star cluster. W40 is about 1,400 light-years from the Sun, about the same distance as the well-known Orion nebula, although the two are almost 180 degrees apart in the sky. They are two of the nearest regions in which massive stars - with masses upwards of 10 times that of the Sun - have been observed to be forming. The W40 star-forming region was observed as part of a Spitzer Legacy Survey, and the resulting mosaic image was published as part of the MYStIX (Massive Young stellar clusters Study in Infrared and X-rays) survey of young stellar objects. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken with the telescope's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) in different wavelengths of infrared light: 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 µm (shown as blue, green, orange and red). Organic molecules made of carbon and hydrogen, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are excited by interstellar radiation and become luminescent at wavelengths near 8.0 microns, giving the nebula its reddish features. Stars are brighter at the shorter wavelengths, giving them a blue tint. Some of the youngest stars are surrounded by dusty disks of material, which glow with a yellow or red hue. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23121

The shimmering colors visible in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image show off the remarkable complexity of the Twin Jet Nebula. The new image highlights the nebula’s shells and its knots of expanding gas in striking detail. Two iridescent lobes of material stretch outwards from a central star system. Within these lobes two huge jets of gas are streaming from the star system at speeds in excess of one million kilometers (621,400 miles) per hour. Read more: <a href="http://go.nasa.gov/1hGASfl" rel="nofollow">go.nasa.gov/1hGASfl</a> Credit: ESA/Hubble &amp; NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

This image from NASA Dawn spacecraft of asteroid Vesta shows Helena crater, which is the crater that resembles the shape of a butterfly wings center, and Laelia crater bottom right.

Dr. Ashot Sargsyan demonstrates the use of the Butterfly iQ for cardiac imaging.

This image captured by NASA 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft shows the same crater as yesterday IR image.

A butterfly sits in the palm of a visitor’s hand at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Kennedy kicked of its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the visitor complex on April 11, 2019, where butterflies were released throughout the day. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

ISS021-E-029873 (18 Nov. 2009) --- Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, Expedition 21 flight engineer, works with the new Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) Science Insert 03 (CSI-03) assembly in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. CSI-03 is flying two butterfly habitats during this mission and will examine the complete life cycle of the butterflies as they eat, grow and undergo metamorphosis in space.

A newly released butterfly sits in a cluster of flowers at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Kennedy kicked off its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the center’s visitor complex in Florida on April 11, 2019, which included multiple butterfly releases throughout the day. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

A butterfly perches on a visitor’s finger at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Kennedy kicked off its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the visitor complex on April 11, 2019, where butterflies were released throughout the day. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

ISS021-E-029871 (18 Nov. 2009) --- Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, Expedition 21 flight engineer, works with the new Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) Science Insert 03 (CSI-03) assembly in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. CSI-03 is flying two butterfly habitats during this mission and will examine the complete life cycle of the butterflies as they eat, grow and undergo metamorphosis in space.

A visitor transfers a butterfly to a cluster of flowers during one of many butterfly releases held throughout the day at the Kennedy Space Center’s sustainability expo on April 11, 2019. Held at the center’s visitor complex in Florida, the expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

A newly released butterfly sits in a cluster of flowers at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Kennedy kicked off its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the center’s visitor complex in Florida on April 11, 2019, which included multiple butterfly releases throughout the day. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

In this image from NASA Mars Odyssey, eroded mesas and secondary craters dot the landscape in an area of Cydonia Mensae. The single oval-shaped crater displays a butterfly ejecta pattern, indicating that the crater formed from a low-angle impact.

This Magellan image, which is 50 kilometers (31 miles) in width and 80 kilometers (50 miles) in length, is centered at 11.9 degrees latitude, 352 degrees longitude in the eastern Navka Region of Venus. The crater, which is approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) in diameter, displays a butterfly symmetry pattern. The ejecta pattern most likely results from an oblique impact, where the impactor came from the south and ejected material to the north. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00474

A butterfly photographed in the La Selva region of the Costa Rican rain forest as part of NASA's AirSAR 2004 Mesoamerica campaign. AirSAR 2004 Mesoamerica is a three-week expedition by an international team of scientists that will use an all-weather imaging tool, called the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR) which is located onboard NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory. Scientists from many parts of the world including NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are combining ground research done in several areas in Central America with NASA's AirSAR technology to improve and expand on the quality of research they are able to do. NASA's AIRSAR technolgy provides two essential elements to the ground-based scientists. First, it tests and provides accurate measurements of the forest structure. Secondly, AirSAR can study a larger area of the forest versus the smaller area that can be tested and plotted by the ground scientists. It also provides a unique one-of-a-kind system of measurement that obtains important information for the scientists, such as where forests are located and what exactly is in them.

This unnamed crater in Utopia Planitia is shaped like a peanut shell, with an indentation in the crater rim at the middle of the crater. It is likely that this crater was created by a dual impact. In a dual (or double) impact the incoming meteor is broken into two or more pieces which impact together into the surface. This type of impact often has a unique ejecta blanket shape, pinched at the center making a butterfly shape, and a pronounced inner rim jutting out at the center. The ejecta blanket in this case does not show the butterfly shape, and the middle rim is on slightly visible on the left side of the crater. These irregularities may indicate the the meteor pieces were still very close together when they hit the surface. Orbit Number: 95144 Latitude: 31.6611 Longitude: 128.303 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2023-05-27 11:12 https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26261

This VIS image shows a double impact - two meteors hitting simultaneously. The two meteors would have started as a single object, at some point prior to impact the object separated into parts. The two parts followed the same path to the surface, hitting at the same time in close proximity. The linear feature at the center is where the shock waves intersect, its straightness showing the impacts were simultaneous (and nearly equal in size). The ejecta created from the impact tends to be focused to the sides of the doublet, often forming a butterfly-like ejecta blanket. The butterfly pattern is most common at oblique angle impacts, but can also form by the interaction of the impact shock waves. These craters are located in Utopia Planitia. Orbit Number: 72448 Latitude: 27.1977 Longitude: 95.4916 Instrument: VIS Captured: 2018-04-14 13:36 https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22606

SCI2012_0003: SOFIA mid-infrared image of the planetary nebula Minkowski 2-9 (M2-9), also known as the Butterfly Nebula, compared with a visual-wavelength Hubble Space Telescope image at the same scale and orientation. The nebula is composed of two lobes of gas & dust expelled from a dying star with about the mass of our Sun that is seen at the center of the lobes. The HST image shows mostly ionized gas in the lobes whereas the SOFIA image shows mostly solid grains condensing in the gas. The SOFIA data were obtained during SOFIA's Early Science program in 2011 by a Guest Investigator team led by Michael Werner of Caltech/JPL using the FORCAST camera (P.I.Terry Herter, Cornell University). Credit: SOFIA image, RGB = 37, 24, 20 microns; NASA/DLR/USRA/DSI/FORCAST team/M. Werner et al./A. Helton, J. Rho; HST image: NASA/ESA/NSF/AURA/Hubble Heritage Team/STScI/B. Balick, V. Icke, G. Mellema

Kennedy Space Center kicked off its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the center’s visitor complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases held at the expo throughout the day.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- A delicate butterfly perches on a wild flower among the grasses on Kennedy Space Center. KSC shares a boundary with the Merritt Island Wildlife Nature Refuge. The refuge is a habitat for more than 310 species of birds, 25 mammals, 117 fishes and 65 amphibians and reptiles. In addition, the Refuge supports 19 endangered or threatened wildlife species on Federal or State lists, more than any other single refuge in the U.S. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

Volunteers from the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge are photographed with their display during a sustainability expo held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. Guests had the opportunity to view their display and receive information on Florida plants and wildlife. The expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations, where approximately 40 exhibitors attended to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases throughout the day.

Guests view a display set up by Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute during a sustainability expo held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. The expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations, where approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases throughout the day.

Members of the Florida Native Plant Society converse with visitors during a sustainability expo held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. The expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations. The Florida Native Plant Society was one of approximately 40 exhibitors present at the expo. Exhibitors in attendance provided information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases throughout the day.

During the annual Earth Day celebration at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, guests have an opportunity to learn about the environment and meet Butterfly Dan” Dunwoody. The two-day event featured approximately 50 exhibitors offering information on a variety of topics, including electric vehicles, sustainable lighting, renewable energy, Florida-friendly landscaping tips, Florida’s biking trails and more.

Visitors participate in one of many butterfly releases held throughout the day at the Kennedy Space Center’s sustainability expo on April 11, 2019. Held at the center’s visitor complex in Florida, the expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation.

A member of Brevard Backyard Beekeepers is photographed in front of her display during a sustainability expo held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. The expo kicked off Kennedy’s annual Earth Day celebrations, where approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases throughout the day.

Kennedy Space Center kicked off its annual Earth Day celebrations with a sustainability expo at the center’s visitor complex in Florida on April 11, 2019. Approximately 40 exhibitors from across the nation assembled to provide information ranging from energy-saving solutions to wildlife and natural conservation. In addition, there were multiple butterfly releases held at the expo throughout the day.

NASA's InSight spacecraft, its heat shield and its parachute were imaged on Dec. 6 and 11 by the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In images released today, the three new features on the Martian landscape appear teal. That's not their actual color: Light reflected off their surfaces cause the color to be saturated. The ground around the lander is dark, blasted by its retrorockets during descent. Look carefully for a butterfly shape, and you can make out the lander's solar panels on either side. Unannotated, individual images of the lander, heat shield and parachute are also available. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22875

The Twin Jet Nebula, or PN M2-9, is a striking example of a bipolar planetary nebula. Bipolar planetary nebulae are formed when the central object is not a single star, but a binary system, Studies have shown that the nebula’s size increases with time, and measurements of this rate of increase suggest that the stellar outburst that formed the lobes occurred just 1200 years ago.

The broader scene for this image is the fluidized ejecta from Bakhuysen Crater to the southwest, but there's something very interesting going on here on a much smaller scale. A small impact crater, about 25 meters in diameter, with a gouged-out trench extends to the south. The ejecta (rocky material ejected from the crater) mostly extends to the east and west of the crater. This "butterfly" ejecta is very common for craters formed at low impact angles. Taken together, these observations suggest that the crater-forming impactor came in at a low angle from the north, hit the ground and ejected material to the sides. The top of the impactor may have sheared off ("decapitating" the impactor) and continued downrange, forming the trench. We can't prove that's what happened, but this explanation is consistent with the observations. Regardless of how it formed, it's quite an interesting-looking "dragonfly" crater. The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.69 inches) per pixel. [The original image scale is 55.7 centimeters (21.92 inches) per pixel (with 2 x 2 binning); objects on the order of 167 centimeters (65.7 inches) across are resolved.] North is up. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21454

ISS026-E-016368 (8 Jan. 2011) --- Brasilia, Brazil at night time is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 26 crew member on the International Space Station. Whether seen at night or during the day, the capital city of Brazil is unmistakable from orbit. Brasilia is located on a plateau (the Planalto Central) in the west-central part of the country, and is widely considered to be one of the best examples of 20th century urban planning in the world. One of its most distinctive design features—as seen from above—suggests a bird, butterfly, or airplane traveling along a northwest-southeast direction, and is made dramatically visible by city light patterns (center left, directly to the west of Lake Paranoa). Following the establishment of Brasilia in the early 1960s informal settlements began to form around the original planned city. Ceilandia, located to the west of Brasilia, was one such informal settlement. In 1970 the settlement was formalized by the government and is now a satellite city of Brasilia with its own distinct urban identity. The developed areas of Brasilia and its satellite cities are clearly outlined by street grid and highway light patterns at night in this photograph taken from the space station. The large unlit region to the northwest of the city is the Brasilia National Park (lower left); other dark regions to the south and southwest contain agricultural fields and expanses of Cerrado tropical savanna.

This shot from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a maelstrom of glowing gas and dark dust within one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This stormy scene shows a stellar nursery known as N159, an HII region over 150 light-years across. N159 contains many hot young stars. These stars are emitting intense ultraviolet light, which causes nearby hydrogen gas to glow, and torrential stellar winds, which are carving out ridges, arcs, and filaments from the surrounding material. At the heart of this cosmic cloud lies the Papillon Nebula, a butterfly-shaped region of nebulosity. This small, dense object is classified as a High-Excitation Blob, and is thought to be tightly linked to the early stages of massive star formation. N159 is located over 160,000 light-years away. It resides just south of the Tarantula Nebula (heic1402), another massive star-forming complex within the LMC. This image comes from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The region was previously imaged by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which also resolved the Papillon Nebula for the first time. Credit: ESA/Hubble &amp; NASA

Some of the most breathtaking views in the Universe are created by nebulae — hot, glowing clouds of gas. This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the centre of the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust. Nebulae are often named based on their key characteristics — particularly beautiful examples include the Ring Nebula (heic1310), the Horsehead Nebula (heic1307) and the Butterfly Nebula (heic0910). This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the centre of the Lagoon Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 8, in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The inspiration for this nebula’s name may not be immediately obvious — this is because the image captures only the very heart of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula’s name becomes much clearer in a wider field view (opo0417i) when the broad, lagoon-shaped dust lane that crosses the glowing gas of the nebula can be made out. Another clear difference between this new image and others is that this image combines both infrared and optical light rather than being purely optical(heic1015). Infrared light cuts through thick, obscuring patches of dust and gas, revealing the more intricate structures underneath and producing a completely different landscape [1]. However, even in visible light, the tranquil name remains misleading as the region is packed full of violent phenomena. The bright star embedded in dark clouds at the centre of this image is known as Herschel 36. This star is responsible for sculpting the surrounding cloud, stripping away material and influencing its shape. Herschel 36 is the main source of ionising radiation [2] for this part of the Lagoon Nebula. This central part of the Lagoon Nebula contains two main structures of gas and dust connected by wispy twisters, visible in the middle third of this image (opo9638). These features are quite similar to their namesakes on Earth — they are thought to be wrapped up into their funnel-like shapes by temperature differences between the hot surface and cold interior of the clouds. The nebula is also actively forming new stars, and energetic winds from these newborns may contribute to creating the twisters. This image combines images taken using optical and infrared light gathered by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Trauger (Jet Propulson Laboratory) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>