The Antennae Galaxies in Collision
24.10.2006

Two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus and here are the latest pictures. When two galaxies collide, however, the stars that compose them usually do not. This is because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small amount of that space.

X Rays From Antennae Galaxies
2.02.2004

A bevy of black holes and neutron stars shine as bright, point-like sources against bubbles of million degree gas in this false-color x-ray image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The striking picture spans about...

NGC 281
9.12.2008

Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and it's almost easy to miss stars of the open cluster IC 1590. But, formed within the nebula, that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow.

Star EGGs in the Eagle Nebula
22.10.2006

Where do stars form? One place, star forming regions known as "EGGs", are uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16). EGGs, short for evaporating gaseous globules, are dense regions of mostly molecular hydrogen gas that fragment and gravitationally collapse to form stars.

The Great Carina Nebula
9.06.2011

A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. Like the smaller, more northerly Great...

Colorful Clouds of Orion
19.12.2002

Revisiting one of the most famous nebulae in planet Earth's night sky, astrophotographer Robert Gendler has constructed this stunning, color-enhanced mosiac of the region surrounding the Great Nebula in Orion. As seen here...

Smoke from the Cigar Galaxy
14.04.2006

Very bright in infrared light, well-known starburst galaxy M82's popular name describes its suggestive shape seen at visible wavelengths - The Cigar Galaxy. Ironically, M82's fantastic appearance in this Spitzer Space Telescope image...

Stars Forming in Serpens
31.08.2007

Stars are forming in a dense molecular cloud a mere 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens Cauda (The Serpent's Tail). At that estimated distance, this sharp, near-infrared close-up of the active Serpens star-forming region spans about 2 arcminutes or just over half a light-year.

NGC 1531/2: Interacting Galaxies
28.02.2005

This dramatic image of an interacting pair of galaxies was made using 8-meter Gemini South telescope at Cerro Pachon, Chile. NGC 1531 is the background galaxy with a bright core just above center and NGC 1532 is the foreground spiral galaxy laced with dust lanes.

Denizen of the Tarantula Nebula
3.05.2003

The star cluster at lower right, cataloged as Hodge 301, is a denizen of the Tarantula Nebula. An evocative nebula in the southern sky, the sprawling cosmic Tarantula is an energetic star forming region some 168,000 light-years distant in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.