M51: The Center Of The Whirlpool
27.05.2000

In the center of M51, a spiral galaxy 23 million light-years away, astronomers have identified a dense region of young stars. Viewed face-on in the constellation Canes Venatici, the swirling arcs of this galaxy's spiral arms have inspired its popular name, The Whirlpool Galaxy.

The Past of Asteroid Eros
9.10.2001

How did large rocks come to be scattered on the surface of asteroid Eros? Eros stands out not only because of its proximity to Earth but also because it was visited recently by NASA's NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft.

Painting with Solar Neutrons
25.10.1995

Solar flares are propelled high above the Sun's surface by powerful, twisted magnetic fields. The flares spew high energy atomic and subatomic particles into space. During an intense solar flare on June 15, 1991, a spray of solar neutrons was detected by the COMPTEL instrument onboard NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.

Rampaging Fronts of the Veil Nebula
7.03.1996

A supernova explosion of a high-mass star results in fast moving blast waves. At the front of the waves shown above, ionized gas in the Veil Supernova Remnant rushes out from the explosion, sweeps up material, and breaks up many atoms into constituent ions and electrons.

In the Center of Spiral M77
11.09.1996

What is happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? To find out, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to peer deep into the dusty chaos of this active galactic nucleus in 1994.

A Bulls Eye Einstein Ring
30.03.1998

Can one galaxy hide behind another? Not in the case of B1938+666. Here the foreground galaxy acts like a huge gravitational lens, pulling the light from the background object around it, keeping it visible.

N159 and the Papillon Nebula
21.12.2003

In a search for massive stars, the Hubble Space Telescope has peered into yet another spectacular region of star formation. This nebula, known as N159, spans over 150 light-years and is located in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, about 170,000 light years distant.

Infrared Trifid
13.01.2005

The Trifid Nebula, aka M20, is easy to find with a small telescope, a well known stop in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. But where visible light pictures show the nebula divided into three parts by dark, obscuring dust lanes, this penetrating infrared image reveals filaments of luminous gas and newborn stars.

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula
25.04.2005

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Pictured above is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy.

Gravitational Tractor
10.11.2005

How would you change the course of an Earth-threatening asteroid? One idea - a massive spacecraft that uses gravity as a towline - is illustrated in this dramatic artist's view of a gravitational tractor in action.