Dust and Gas Surrounding Star R Coronae Australis
16.10.2000

Young star R Coronae Australis has a dusty home. The dust is so thick on the upper left of the above photograph that little light from background stars comes through. Thinner dust near the stars reflects light from R Coronae Australis (upper right) and neighbor TY Coronae Australis, giving their surroundings a flowing appearance.

An Unexplored Nebula
29.09.2005

The combined light of the stars of the Milky Way are reflected by this cosmic dust cloud that soars some 300 light-years above the plane of our Galaxy. Dubbed the Angel Nebula by astronomer...

The Galactic Center in Infrared
7.09.2003

The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above photograph.

One Hundred Kilometer Terrain on Venus
7.05.2001

Even the hot and cracked surface of Venus has rolling hills. Although never actually photographed from up-close, images of the Venusian surface like that shown above have been constructed in recent years by digitally merging distant photographs with height-sensitive radar. Isolated above is a 100-kilometer wide swath inside a volcanic region known as Yavine Corona.

M78: Stardust and Starlight
4.11.2005

Interstellar dust clouds and bright nebulae abound in the fertile constellation of Orion. One of the brightest, M78, is just below center in this sharp widefield view, covering an area north of Orion's belt. At a distance of about 1,500 light-years, the bluish nebula itself is about 5 light-years across.

Galactic Centre Starscape
29.06.2000

Thirty thousand light-years distant, beyond the majestic dust clouds of the constellation Sagittarius, lies the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy. Hidden from optical view by the dust, the Galactic Centre region is a relatively unexplored starscape.