Infrared Trifid
The Trifid nebula (M20) is a bright star forming region in Sagittarius, 5000 light years from Earth. In visible light, the interstellar gas cloud is crossed by dark, obscuring dust lanes which roughly divide the glowing emission nebula into three ...
A Fleeting Eclipse
A lunar eclipse can be viewed in a leisurely fashion. Visible to anyone on the night side of planet Earth (weather permitting), totality often lasts an hour or so as the moon glides through the Earth's shadow. But a solar eclipse is more ...
Zodiacal Light
Sometimes the sky itself seems to glow. Usually, this means you are seeing a cloud reflecting sunlight or moonlight. If the glow appears as a faint band of light running across the whole sky, you are probably seeing the combined light from the ...
A Fisheye View of Comet Hale-Bopp
Thousands of stars, several constellations, a planet and a comet all graced the western horizon over Ujue, Spain just after sunset on April 4th, 1997. Because the picture was taken with a fisheye lens, much of the whole night sky is visible. ...
The Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus
What slithers there? The dark winding lanes visible in part of the constellation Ophiuchus belong to the Snake Nebula. The Snake Nebula is a series of dark absorption clouds made up of Interstellar dust. Interstellar dust grains - composed ...
A Star Forming Region in the LMC
Stars sometimes form in colorful ways. Pictured above is a small region in the nearby LMC galaxy where stars are forming. After a star is born, it may do several things to energize its immediate neighborhood. It may develop a strong wind which ...
IP Pegasi: Spiral Star
Spiral arms aren't just for galaxies. A hot disk of gas surrounding a compact white dwarf star in the constellation of Pegasus has recently been revealed to be imprinted with this dramatic pattern. The white dwarf is part of the interacting ...
A Universe in a Box
Is this our universe? Possibly. It is one computerized guess of how gas in the universe was distributed billions of years ago, at redshift 3, when the universe was only a quarter of its present age. Using supercomputers at the National Center ...
Bright Meteor, Dark Sky
Has Orion the Hunter acquired a new weapon? If you turn your head sideways (counterclockwise) you might notice the familiar constellation of Orion, particularly the three consecutive bright stars that make up Orion's belt. But in addition to ...
Super Typhoon Winnie
Super Typhoon Winnie raged through parts of the Eastern Hemisphere last week. Swirling in the Pacific Ocean with winds in excess of 160 miler per hour, Winnie became one of the stronger storm systems in modern times: a Category 5 Hurricane. The ...
