Księżycowa strona daleka

2011-04-09

Tidally locked in synchronous rotation, the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon's farside can become familiar, though. In fact this sharp picture, a mosaic from the Lunar ...

Echa z głębi gwiazdy czerwonego olbrzyma

2011-04-08 Leuven University

A journey to the center of a red giant star is very firmly in the realm of science fiction. But the science of asteroseismology can explore the conditions there. The technique is to time the small variations in a star's brightness measured by the ...

Mgławica planetarna NGC 2438

2011-04-07 Daniel López

NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000 light-years distant it lies within the boundaries of the nautical ...

M74: The Perfect Spiral

2011-04-06 Descubre Foundation

If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as an Sc ...

Droga Mleczna nad Teneryfą

2011-04-05 Juan Carlos Casado

Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? Chances are you have never seen it like this -- nor could you. In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light is visible across the sky. This band is the disk of ...

Verona Rupes: Najwyższy znany klif w...

2011-04-04

Could you survive a jump off the tallest cliff in the Solar System? Quite possibly. Verona Rupes on Uranus' moon Miranda is estimated to be 20 kilometers deep -- ten times the depth of the Earth's Grand Canyon. Given Miranda's low gravity, it ...

Galaktyka olbrzymia NGC 6872

2011-04-03

Over 400,000 light years across NGC 6872 is an enormous spiral galaxy, at least 4 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. About 200 million light-years distant, toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock, the remarkable galaxy's ...

Endeavour patrzy w górę

2011-04-02 Ben Cooper

First flown in 1992, Endeavour, the youngest space shuttle orbiter, is being prepared for its 25th and final trip to low Earth orbit. Seen here from an exciting perspective 400 feet above the floor of Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly ...

It's Raining on Titan

2011-04-01 AstroArt

It's been raining on Titan. In fact, it's likely been raining methane on Titan and that's not an April Fools' joke. The almost familiar scene depicted in this artist's vision of the surface of Saturn's largest moon looks across an eroding ...

MESSENGER na Merkurym

2011-03-31

On March 17, the MESSENGER spacecraft became the first to orbit Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet. This is its first processed color image since entering Mercury orbit. Larger, denser, and with almost twice the surface gravity of ...