Horsehead Rides Again
Difficult to see in small telescopes, the Horsehead nebula was recently selected by internet voters as a target for the Hubble Space Telescope. Above (top) is Hubble's detailed view of the dark cosmic dust cloud, released to celebrate the 11th ...
Space Laser Creates Artificial Star
Some astronomers don't like stars. Bright star fluctuations can indicate how the Earth's atmosphere is changing, but many times no bright star exists in the direction where atmospheric information is needed. So rather than try to eradicate ...
NGC 2264: Stars, Dust, and Gas
The nebula surrounding bright star S Mon is filled with dark dust and glowing gas. The strange shapes that haunt this star forming region originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways to the energetic light and hot gas being ...
Space Shuttle Lifts Off for Space...
Last Thursday, Space Shuttle Endeavor lifted off on course for the latest round of building the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit around Earth. One of the highlights of the 11-day mission promises to be the installation of Canadarm2, a ...
Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae
Stars come in bunches. Of the over 200 globular star clusters that orbit the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, 47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster (behind Omega Centauri). Known to some affectionately as 47 Tuc or NGC 104, it is ...
Apollo 12: Stereo View Near Surveyor...
This weekend's stereo picture finds Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad standing on the lunar surface near the southern rim of Surveyor Crater in November of 1969. With red/blue glasses you can gaze beyond the spacesuited Conrad across the ...
Io: Moon Over Jupiter
How big is the Jovian moon Io? The most volcanic body in the Solar System, Io (usually pronounced "EYE-oh") is 3,600 kilometers in diameter, about the size of planet Earth's single large natural satellite. Gliding past Jupiter at the turn of the ...
Sunspot Stack
Welcome to multiwavelength astronomy! From top to bottom, these stacked panels show the largest sunspot group in a decade in visible, extreme ultraviolet, and x-ray light. All were taken on March 29, around the time the famous solar active ...
A Higher Dimensional Universe?
Does our universe have higher but unusual spatial dimensions? This idea has been gaining popularity to help explain why vastly separated parts of our universe appear so similar, and why the geometry of our universe does not seem to result ...
Colorful Water Clouds Over Mars
One place where water can be found on Mars is in clouds. In the above picture colorful water clouds are visible just after sunrise in and around a maze of canyons known as Noctis Labyrinthus (the labyrinth of the night). Scientists don't yet ...
