Fractal Interstellar Dust Up-Close
Our universe is a very dusty place. Dust usually shows its presence by blocking out light emitted from stars or nebulae behind it, sometimes creating the illusion of a horse's head or a sombrero hat. But nobody really knows what a typical ...
The Barren Moon
The above photo, taken as the Apollo 17 astronauts orbited the Moon in 1972, depicts the stark lunar surface around the Eratosthenes and Copernicus craters. Many similar images of a Moon devoid of life are familiar to denizens of the space age. ...
Europa's Disconnected Surface
Jupiter's moon Europa is so exciting that the Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has now embarked on an extended mission to study it. Oceans that might exist beneath Europa's surface are thought to be one of the best places to look for life in ...
The Largest Rock Known
There, that faint dot in the center - that's the largest rock known. It is larger than every known asteroid, moon, and comet nucleus. It is larger than any other rocky planet. (Nobody knows for sure what size rocks lie at the cores of Jovian ...
NGC 5307: A Symmetric Planetary Nebula
Some stellar nebulae are strangely symmetric. For example, every major blob of gas visible on the upper left of NGC 5307 appears to have a counterpart on the lower right. This picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope was released last week. ...
NGC 7009: The Saturn Nebula
The layers of the Saturn Nebula give a complex picture of how this planetary nebula was created. The above picture, taken in April 1996 and released last week, allows a better understanding of the mysterious process that transformed a low-mass ...
The Milky Way in Infrared
At night, from a dark location, part of the clear sky looks milky. This unusual swath of dim light is generally visible during any month and from any location. Until the invention of the telescope, nobody really knew what the "Milky Way" was. ...
Pluto: The Frozen Planet
The Hubble Space Telescope imaged Pluto and its moon Charon in 1994. Pluto is usually the most distant planet from the Sun but because of its elliptic orbit Pluto crossed inside of Neptune's orbit in 1979 and will cross back out again in 1999. ...
Keck: The Largest Optical Telescopes
In buildings eight stories tall rest mirrors ten meters across that are slowly allowing humanity to map the universe. Alone, each is the world's largest optical telescope: Keck. Together, the twin Keck telescopes have the resolving power of a ...
West Of The Great Red Spot
The turbulent region West of Jupiter's Great Red Spot is highlighted in this recent picture constructed from data recorded by the Galileo spacecraft. The image is color coded to show cloud height and thickness; white clouds are high and thick, ...
