DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
27.09.2022

Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To help protect our Earth from some...

APOD: 2025 April 20 Б The Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared
20.04.2025

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, multi-wavelength images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust.

New Stars Destroying NGC 1748
3.04.2001

NGC 1748 cannot contain all the new stars it has formed. The young stars, the most massive of which are bright blue, emit so much energy they are pushing out and dispersing the gas and dust that comprise this star forming nebula.

M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
17.12.2000

Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above

Cone Nebula Close Up
3.05.2002

Cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes abound in stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by energetic winds from newborn stars. A well-known example, the Cone Nebula within the bright galactic star-forming region NGC 2264, was captured in this close-up view from the Hubble Space Telescope's newest camera.

The Clouds of Neptune
7.05.1996

These Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images reveal glimpses of the dynamic atmosphere of Neptune, the Solar System's most distant gas giant planet. The first close-up of Neptune's clouds was provided by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft during its August 1989 flyby, giving a tantalizingly brief look.

Spirit s 3D View Towards Sleep Hollow
6.01.2004

Working late, tired mission members nicknamed the smooth-looking depression to the left of center in this image from the martian surface, Sleepy Hollow. The picture is a portion of the 3D panorama of the Spirit rover's landing site released yesterday, constructed with data from the Mars rover's navigation cameras.

POX 186: Not So Long Ago
28.02.2004

Not so long ago and not so far, far away, a galaxy was born. Seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image, the island universe of stars, gas, and dust cataloged as POX 186 is a mere 68 million light-years distant toward an uncrowded region in the constellation Virgo.

M57: The Ring Nebula
4.07.2004

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective -- our view from planet Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star.

X-Rays From Antennae Galaxies
18.08.2000

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 shows...