The Averted Side Of The Moon
This vintage 60-kopek stamp celebrates a dramatic achievement. On October 7th, forty years ago (7/X/1959), the Soviet interplanetary station which has come to be called "Luna 3" successfully photographed the far side of the moon giving denizens ...
Polaris: The North Star
Polaris is quite an unusual star. First, Polaris is the nearest bright star to the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to rotate around Polaris, making it the North Star. Since no bright star is near the ...
The 220 Mirrors of CRTF
ven the largest of modern optical telescopes are small when compared with the light gathering power of the Central Receiver Test Facility (CRTF) located in New Mexico, USA. CRTF has 220 mirrors each over 7-meters in diameter all focused on a ...
Nearby Dwarf Galaxy Leo I
Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies dominated by our Milky Way Galaxy and M31. Leo I is thought to be the most distant of the eleven known small satellite galaxies orbiting our Milky Way Galaxy. Besides the LMC and ...
Phi Persei: Double Star
It's clear who is the biggest star in this binary system. Based on recent results, this artist's vision of the double star Phi Persei, 720 light years away, shows a bright, rapidly rotating massive star surrounded by a disk of gas. A small ...
New Stars In 30 Doradus
Compare these matched Hubble Space Telescope views (visible-light on top; infrared on bottom) of a region in the star-forming 30 Doradus Nebula. Find the numbered arrows in the infrared image which identify newborn massive stars. For example, ...
Massive Stars Of 30 Doradus
This gorgeous visible-light Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young cluster of massive stars at the center of the 30 Doradus Nebula. Gas and dust clouds in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated ...
The Crab Nebula in X-Rays
Why does the Crab Nebula still glow? In the year 1054 A.D. a supernova was observed that left a nebula that even today glows brightly in every color possible, across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. At the nebula's center is an ultra-dense ...
Mystery Object Explained
rers often discover the unexpected. Such was the case when the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey chanced upon the unusual object circled in the above photograph. The so-called mystery object appeared star-like but displayed colors unlike ...
Our Galaxy in Stars, Gas, and Dust
The disk of our Milky Way Galaxy is home to hot nebulae, cold dust, and billions of stars. The red nebulae visible in the above contrast-enhanced picture are primarily emission nebulae, glowing clouds of hydrogen gas heated by nearby, bright, ...
