Comet LINEAR Extends
Comet LINEAR's tail appears to be extending. Many sky watchers are closely following Comet C/1999 S4 LINEAR and wondering if it will develop an impressive tail or become visible to the naked eye later this month. So far, the unpredictable comet ...
The Hubble Deep Field
Galaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Deep Field - one of humanity's most distant optical views of the Universe. The dimmest, some as faint as 30th magnitude (about four billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided ...
The United States At Night
This is what the United States of America looks like at night! Can you find your favorite US city in this image? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. The above picture is actually a composite of over 200 images made by ...
Sirius, Sun, Moon, and Southern Cross
From left to right are the enclosures of Yepun (ye-poon; Sirius), Antu (an-too; Sun), Kueyen (qua-yen; Moon), and Melipal (me-li-pal; Southern Cross), pictured here as night falls at Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. These are the four 8.2 ...
A Jet from Galaxy M87
What's causing a huge jet to emanate from the center of galaxy M87? Although the unusual jet was first noticed early in the twentieth century, the exact cause is still debated. The above recently released picture taken by the Hubble Space ...
The Galactic Center Across the Infrared
The center of our Galaxy is obscured in visible light by dark dust that rotates with the stars in the Galactic Plane. In this century, however, sensors have been developed that can detect light more red that humans can see - light called ...
Comet LINEAR Approaches
Just possibly, a new comet may become bright enough to see without binoculars later this month. Comet C/1999 S4 LINEAR is rapidly approaching both the Earth and the Sun from the outer Solar System, and should be at its brightest around 2000 July ...
Pelican Nebula Ionization Front
The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070, the official designation, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, receives much study because it is a ...
Gamma-Ray Burst: A Milestone Explosion
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) were discovered by accident. Thirty three years ago today, satellites first recorded a GRB. The data plotted here show that the count rate of the satellite gamma-ray instrument abruptly jumped indicating a sudden flash of ...
Ultraviolet Earth from the Moon
Here's a switch: the above picture is of the Earth taken from a lunar observatory! This false color picture shows how the Earth glows in ultraviolet (UV) light. UV light is so blue humans can't see it. Very little UV light is transmitted ...
