Mimas: Mały księżyc z dużym kraterem

2009-05-17

Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of the largest impact craters on one of Saturn's smallest moons. The crater, named Herschel after the 1789 discoverer of Mimas, Sir William Herschel, spans about 130 kilometers and is ...

Atlantis i Hubble obok siebie

2009-05-16 Thierry Legault

On Wednesday, May 13, two, tiny, fast moving spots crossed an otherwise featureless solar disk. Not sunspots though, the dark blemishes were silhouettes of the shuttle orbiter Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope side by side. To record this ...

M97: Mgławica Sowa

2009-05-15 Keith Quattrocchi

The Owl Nebula is perched in the sky about 2,600 light-years away toward the bottom of the Big Dipper's bowl. Also cataloged as M97, the 97th object in Messier's well-known list, its round shape along with the placement of two large, dark "eyes" ...

Nieuchwytna Mgławica Meduza

2009-05-14 Gerhard Bachmayer

Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring wide-field telescopic view. Flanked by two yellow-tinted stars, Mu and Eta Geminorum, at the foot of a celestial twin, the Jellyfish Nebula is the brighter arcing ridge ...

Prom kosmiczny przed świtem

2009-05-13 Charles Danforth

This shuttle has launched to space. Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis sat on Launch Pad 39A before dawn last month as it was prepared for the launch. The shuttle orbiter is visible on the image right, attached to a brown liquid fuel ...

A Circumhorizontal Arc Over Ohio

2009-05-12 Todd Sladoje

Why would clouds appear to be different colors? The reason here is that ice crystals in distant cirrus clouds are acting like little floating prisms. Sometimes known as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc lies ...

Czterdzieści tysięcy meteorów na niebie

2009-05-11 SonotaCo Network

Where do meteors come from? Visible meteors are typically sand-sized grains of ice and rock that once fragmented from comets. Many a meteor shower has been associated with a known comet, although some intriguing orphan showers do remain. ...

M31: Galaktyka Andromedy

2009-05-10 Robert Gendler

Andromeda is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Our Galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda. Together these two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The diffuse light from Andromeda is caused by the hundreds of ...

Gwieździsta noc w Brazylii

2009-05-09 Babak Tafreshi

This panoramic image tracing constellations in the southern sky shows off a beautiful vista toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. It was recorded just last month near the city of Campos in northeastern Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. A sugar ...

Galaktyki z Gromady Perseusza

2009-05-08 R. Jay Gabany

This colorful telescopic skyscape is filled with galaxies that lie nearly 250 million light-years away, the galaxies of the Perseus cluster. Their extended and sometimes surprising shapes are seen beyond a veil of foreground stars in our own ...