Galactic Centre Starscape
Thirty thousand light-years distant, beyond the majestic dust clouds of the constellation Sagittarius, lies the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy. Hidden from optical view by the dust, the Galactic Centre region is a relatively unexplored starscape. ...
BATSE GRB Final Sky Map
What causes the most powerful explosions in the universe? The BATSE modules that flew on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory allowed more insight into enigmatic gamma-ray burst (GRB) explosions than ever before. From 1991-2000, BATSE detected ...
M63: The Sunflower Galaxy
One of the bright spiral galaxies visible in the north sky is M63, the Sunflower Galaxy. M63, also catalogued as NGC 5055, can be found with a small telescope in the constellation of Canes Venaciti. Visible in the above picture are long winding ...
Newton Crater: Evidence for Recent...
What could have formed these unusual channels? Inside a small crater that lies inside large Newton Crater on Mars, numerous narrow channels run from the top down to the crater floor. The above picture covers a region spanning about 3000 meters ...
Shapley 1: An Annular Planetary Nebula
What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel? The center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmospheric layers are expelled into space and appear as a planetary nebula. This particular planetary nebula, designated Shapley 1 after ...
Sunlight Through Saturn's Rings
Normally, earth-bound astronomers view Saturn's spectacular ring system fully illuminated by reflected sunlight. However, this intriguing picture was made to take advantage of an unusual orientation, with the Sun actually illuminating the rings ...
The Gullies Of Mars
The recently revealed gullies on Mars are rare. But they may prove to be sites of present day, near surface, liquid water, holding out the tantalizing possibility of martian life. Too small to have been seen by past Mars orbiters, these ...
Blue Stragglers In NGC 6397
In our neck of the Galaxy stars are too far apart to be in danger of colliding, but in the dense cores of globular star clusters star collisions may be relatively common. In fact, researchers have evidence that the row of six closely spaced blue ...
Solstice Celebration
Season's greetings! At 01:48 Universal Time on June 21 the Sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth's sky marking a season change and the first solstice of the year 2000. In celebration, consider this delightfully detailed, brightly ...
The Long Jet of Pictor A
A jet stretching nearly a million light years has been imaged emanating from galaxy Pictor A. The thin jet of electrons and protons shoots out at nearly light-speed likely from the vicinity of a large black hole at the galaxy center. At the left ...
