Other Worlds and HD 38529
After the latest round of discovery announcements, the list of known worlds of distant suns has grown to 50. While extrasolar planet discoveries are sure to continue, none - so far - points clearly to another planetary system like our own. Take, ...
A Solar Filament Lifts Off
Hot gas frequently erupts from the Sun. One such eruption produced the glowing filament pictured above, which was captured on July 19 by the Earth-orbiting TRACE satellite. The filament, although small compared to the overall size of the Sun, ...
Comet LINEAR Disperses
What's happened to the nucleus of Comet LINEAR? The brightest comet this year has unexpectedly broken up into many smaller pieces. The break-up occurred on or about July 25 and was noted by many astronomers around the world with particularly ...
Nearby Star Episilon Eridani Has a...
A planet has been found orbiting a Sun-like star only 10 light-years away. No direct picture of the planet was taken - the planet was discovered by the gravitational wobble it created on its parent star, Epsilon Eridani. The discovery marks the ...
The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own ...
Halley's Nucleus: An Orbiting Iceberg
What does a comet nucleus look like? Formed from the primordial stuff of the solar system, it is thought to resemble a very dirty iceberg. But for active comets, telescopic images only reveal the surrounding cloud of gas and dust, the comet's ...
M15: Dense Globular Star Cluster
Life might get dull at the core of M15 but the sky would always be bright with stars! In fact, only 40,000 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, M15 is one of the most densely packed globular star clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy. This ...
22 Miles From Eros
Last month the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft swooped closer to Eros, orbiting only 22 miles (36 kilometers) from the center of the asteroid. These two images taken on July 19 (left) and July 24 (right) reveal the diminutive world's pocked and mottled ...
At the Edge of the Crescent Nebula
The Crescent Nebula is a rapidly expanding shell of gas surrounding a dying star. In this recently released image by the Hubble Space Telescope, a bright dynamic part of the nebula three light-years across is shown in representative color. The ...
X-Rays from Comet LINEAR
Why do comets emit X-rays? First discovered during the passing of Comet Hyakutake in 1996, the reason a cold comet would produce hot X-rays has since remained a mystery. On July 14, however, the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory was able to ...
