Astronomy Picture of the Day

1999-01-22

The Pegasus dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Peg dSph) is a small, newly recognized member of the Local Group of Galaxies. Likely a satellite companion of the Local Group's dominant player, the large spiral Andromeda (M31), the Pegasus dwarf galaxy is ...

1999-01-21

A camera with over 67 million pixels (digital picture elements) was used to record this stunning image of spiral galaxy NGC 253. Known as the Wide Field Imager (WFI), the camera is the latest instrument to be installed at the European Southern ...

1999-01-20

These near-infrared Hubble images of dust surrounding young stars offer the latest tantalizing evidence for planets beyond our Solar System. At left, the dark gap seen in the dust disk is reminiscent of a similar large gap in Saturn's rings ...

1999-01-19 AURA

Telescopes are not very useful during lightning storms. Nevertheless, with lightning illuminating a dark landscape, the picturesque dome of the famous Kitt Peak 2.1-meter Telescope makes for a dramatic photograph. A passing car created the red ...

1999-01-18 AURA

At the top of Kitt Peak Mountain near Tucson, Arizona lies one of the world's great collections of telescopes. As pictured, in the dome at the far left lies the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope, famous recently for tracking distant supernovae. The next ...

1999-01-17

Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way. Back in the old days, back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are perhaps 200 left. Many globular clusters were destroyed over the eons ...

1999-01-16

Can you identify this wispy stellar nebula? How many light-years from Earth did you say? Resembling a twisting cloud of gas and dust between the stars this swirling form is actually close by - a spiral eddy formed near the North Atlantic Gulf ...

1999-01-15 AAO

The Orion Nebula and its surroundings present skygazers with a wondrous jumble of newborn stars, gas, and dust. Emission nebulae - glowing energized clouds of gas, and reflection nebulae - dust clouds shining by reflected starlight, abound at ...

1999-01-14

The Massachusetts-based firm of Alvan Clark and Sons became famous for making telescope optics near the end of the last century. Near the end of this century, major astronomical observatories still boast of telescopes with lenses and mirrors made ...

1999-01-13

Stars come in all different colors. The color of a star indicates its surface temperature, an important property used to assign each star a spectral type. Most stars in the above Sagittarius Star Cloud are orange or red and relatively faint, as ...