The Keyhole Nebula
23.05.1999

The dark dusty Keyhole Nebula gets its name from its unusual shape. Officially designated NGC 3324, the Keyhole Nebula is a smaller region superposed on the larger Eta Carina Nebula. These nebulae were created by the dying star Eta Carina, which is prone to violent outbursts during its final centuries.

Reflection Nebula M78
10.02.2002

An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78, one of the brightest reflection nebula on the sky. M78 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of Orion. The dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula.

The Keyhole Nebula
11.01.1998

The dark dusty Keyhole Nebula gets its name from its unusual shape. Officially designated NGC 3324, the Keyhole Nebula is a smaller region superposed on the larger Eta Carina Nebula. These nebulae were created by the dying star Eta Carina, which is prone to violent outbursts during its final centuries.

Hubble View: Jupiter Impact
31.07.2009

This sprawling dark marking is Jupiter's latest impact scar, a debris plume created as a small asteroid or comet disintegrated after plunging into the gas giant's atmosphere. Located in Jupiter's south polar region, the new feature was discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley on July 19.

The View from Chajnantor
23.11.2011

From an altitude of over 5,000 meters, the night sky view from Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes is breathtaking in more ways than one. The dark site's rarefied atmosphere, at about 50 percent sea level pressure, is also extremely dry.

The W4 Chimney
6.02.2000

A huge chimney venting hot clouds of gas out from the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy has recently been imaged in radio waves. The Canadian Galactic Plane Survey team used an array of radio telescopes to survey an ionized gas region known as W4.

M78 Wide Field
28.12.2017

Interstellar dust clouds and glowing nebulae abound in the fertile constellation of Orion. One of the brightest, M78, is centered in this colorful, wide field view, covering an area north of Orion's belt. At a distance of about 1,500 light-years, the bluish reflection nebula is around 5 light-years across.

Coronal Rain, Solar Storm
14.11.2000

In this picture, the Sun's surface is quite dark. A frame from a movie recorded on November 9th by the orbiting TRACE telescope, it shows coronal loops lofted over a solar active region.

Solar Eclipse from Uganda
8.11.2013

The Sun's disk was totally eclipsed for a brief 20 seconds as the Moon's dark umbral shadow raced across Pokwero in northwestern Uganda on November 3rd. So this sharp telescopic view of totality in clear skies from the central African locale was much sought after by eclipse watchers.

The California Nebula
11.01.2016

What's California doing in space? Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States.