NGC 2244: A Star Cluster in the...

2000-08-22 J. C. Cuillandre

In the heart of the Rosette Nebula lies a bright open cluster of stars that lights up the nebula. The stars of NGC 2244 formed from the surrounding gas only four million years ago and emit light and wind that define the nebula's appearance ...

A Perseid Aurora

2000-08-21 Jimmy Westlake

Just after the Moon set but before the Sun rose in the early morning hours of August 12, meteors pelted the Earth from the direction of the constellation Perseus, while ions pelted the Earth from the Sun. The meteors were expected as sub-sand ...

The Surface of Titan

2000-08-20

If sailing the hydrocarbon seas of Titan, beware of gasoline rain. Such might be a travel advisory issued one future day for adventurers visiting Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. New images of Titan's surface were released last week from the ...

ROSAT Explores The X-Ray Sky

2000-08-19

Launched in 1990, the orbiting ROSAT observatory explored the Universe by viewing the entire sky in x-rays -- photons with about 1,000 times more energy than visible light. This ROSAT survey produced the sharpest, most sensitive image of the ...

X-Rays From Antennae Galaxies

2000-08-18

A bevy of black holes and neutron stars shine as bright, point-like sources against bubbles of million degree gas in this false-color x-ray image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The striking picture shows the central regions of two ...

Unusual Giant Galaxy NGC 1316

2000-08-16

Can unusual giant galaxy NGC 1316 help calibrate the universe? Quite possibly -- if it turns out this atypical galaxy is composed of typical stars. NGC 1316, pictured above, is most obviously strange because it has a size and shape common for ...

The Solar Spectrum

2000-08-15 Nigel Sharp

It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device. The above spectrum was created at the McMath-Pierce Solar ...

Kemble's Cascade

2000-08-14

A picturesque chain of unrelated stars is visible with strong binoculars towards the constellation of Camelopardalis. Known as Kemble's Cascade, the asterism contains about 20 stars nearly in a row stretching over five times the width of a full ...

Doomed Star Eta Carinae

2000-08-13

Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when - it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae's mass - about 100 times greater than our Sun - makes it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova. ...

A Perseid Meteor

2000-08-12 S. Kohle

This weekend, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of cosmic sand and gravel shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle will streak across the sky as they vaporize during entry into Earth's atmosphere. The Perseids result from the ...