Giant plume of plasma on the Sun’s surface and more — February’s best science images

Retired shuttle. NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavour has been hoisted into a vertical position ready to be put on permanent display at its new home, the partially constructed Samuel Oschin Air and Space Centre in Los Angeles, California. The shuttle flew 25 missions between 1992 and 2011, including the first mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope and several trips to the International Space Station. It will be displayed attached to a huge fuel tank and two rocket boosters, as though it is about to lift off. It is estimated that the project will take up to two years to finish.

Solar spectacle. Astrophotographer Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau captured the moment an enormous solar flare erupted from near the Sun’s south pole on 17 February. Most solar flares happen around the Sun’s equator — the unusual location of this one could be a sign that the Sun is about to enter the most active phase of its roughly 11-year cycle, the solar maximum. The 200,000-km-high jet of plasma eventually broke off and flew into space as a gigantic cloud, known as a coronal mass ejection.

Underwater mountains. Ocean scientists on board the research vessel Falkor used a diving robot to explore underwater mountains — known as seamounts — on a voyage from Costa Rica to Chile. They encountered distinct ecosystems that were home to dozens of species new to science, including deep-sea corals, sponges, sea urchins and squat lobsters. During the same expedition, they discovered four new seamounts using a technique called multibeam sonar to map previously uncharted areas of the sea floor. The largest of these is 2,681 metres tall, covers 450 square kilometres and sits 1,150 metres below the ocean surface.

Record rain. One of the most severe storms on record struck California in early February, dumping about six months’ worth of rain on the state over a period of a few days. Powerful winds and heavy downpours led to flash flooding, fallen trees and landslides — leaving these luxury homes in Dana Point in a precarious position. The deluge was the result of an ‘atmospheric river’, a long current of water-vapour-dense air that is carried by the wind.

Lucky horseshoes. Scientists have begun a study to track endangered horseshoe crabs by fitting the spiny creatures with tracking devices and releasing them into Tung Chung Bay, Hong Kong. The gadgets will monitor the crabs’ movements, and will also collect data on water temperatures. Climate change is thought to be threatening these ancient species by driving habitat loss in the region.

Opening doors. This video footage shows a robot that can open almost any door — a surprisingly difficult task for machines. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania first trained the robot by providing it with a few examples of how to open certain doors, drawers and cabinets. They then let it loose on campus to see whether it could work out how to handle various knobs and handles that it had not seen before. The robot was usually able to learn how to operate each object in less than an hour. This technology paves the way for machines capable of interacting with objects that they have not yet encountered.