Twin Proto Planetary Disks
25.09.1998

Sun-like stars are forming - and probably planets too - hidden inside Lynds 1551, an interstellar cloud of molecular gas and dust in the constellation Taurus. Using new receivers, coordinated radio telescopes at the Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, USA, can now sharply image the dusty proto-planetary disks surrounding these young stars at radio wavelengths.

M95 with Supernova
22.03.2012

Barred spiral galaxy M95 is about 75,000 light-years across, comparable in size to our own Milky Way and one of the larger galaxies of the Leo I galaxy group. In fact, it is part of a not quite so famous trio of Leo galaxies with neighbors M96 and M105, about 38 million light-years distant.

APOD: 2024 October 2 Б The Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy
1.10.2024

It is the largest satellite galaxy of our home Milky Way Galaxy. If you live in the south, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is quite noticeable, spanning about 10 degrees across the night sky, which is 20 times larger than the full moon towards the southern constellation of the dolphinfish (Dorado).

NGC 1097: Spiral Galaxy with a Central Eye
27.07.2009

What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy NGC 1097? No one is sure, but it likely involves a supermassive black hole. Matter falling in from a bar of stars and gas across the center is likely being heated by an extremely energetic region surrounding the central black hole.

AB Aurigae: How To Make Planets
7.02.2003

This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible here for the first time...

QR Codes: Not for Human Eyes
4.10.2011

This communication was not meant for human eyes. It was not even meant for aliens eyes. It's an attempt to communicate directly with your smartphone. Cameras on many smartphones can image the above Quick Response (QR) code and then common applications can tell you what it means.

The Large Cloud of Magellan
16.10.2010

The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily...

NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the LMC
2.10.2018

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this glittering jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away.

AB Aurigae: How To Make Planets
11.06.1999

This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible here for the first time...

Saturn: Shadows of a Seasonal Sundial
12.10.2011

Saturn's rings form one of the larger sundials known. This sundial, however, determines only the season of Saturn, not the time of day. In 2009, during Saturn's last equinox, Saturn's thin rings threw almost no shadows onto Saturn, since the ring plane pointed directly toward the Sun.