The Brown Dwarfs of Orions Trapezium
30.08.2000

The bright stars above are well known as heart of the Trapezium, an open cluster of stars in the center of the Orion Nebula. The many dim objects, however, are not well known, and have come to attention only on recent images in infrared light.

Young Star, Dark Cloud
26.12.2003

High-speed outflows of molecular gas from a young stellar object glow in infrared light, revealing themselves in this recent false-color image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Cataloged as HH (Herbig-Haro) 46/47 the infrared source...

M1: The Crab Nebula
9.11.2023

The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054.

Glimpse of a Globular Star Cluster
14.10.2004

Not a glimpse of this cluster of stars can be seen in the inset visible light image (lower right). Still, the infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals a massive globular star cluster of about 300,000 suns in an apparently empty region of sky in the constellation Aquila.

Supernova Remnant Puppis A
12.09.2014

Driven by the explosion of a massive star, supernova remnant Puppis A is blasting into the surrounding interstellar medium about 7,000 light-years away. At that distance, this remarkable false-color exploration of its complex expansion is about 180 light-years wide.

Inside the Flame Nebula
17.04.2021

The Flame Nebula is a stand out in optical images of the dusty, crowded star forming regions toward Orion's belt and the easternmost belt star Alnitak, a mere 1,400 light-years away. Alnitak is the bright star at the right edge of this infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Young Star Cluster Westerlund 2
31.01.2008

Dusty stellar nursery RCW 49 surrounds young star cluster Westerlund 2 in this remarkable composite skyscape from beyond the visible spectrum of light. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in black...

Galaxies Beyond the Heart: Maffei 1 and 2
9.03.2010

The two galaxies on the far left were unknown until 1968. Although they would have appeared as two of the brighter galaxies on the night sky, the opaque dust of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy had obscured them from being seen in visible light.

WIRO at Jupiter
13.03.2003

Gazing out over the mountaintops from the Wyoming InfraRed Observatory (WIRO), astronomers recently recorded this bizarre looking image of the solar system's ruling planet, gas giant Jupiter. The false-color picture is a composite...

Messier 43
10.07.2015

Often imaged but rarely mentioned, Messier 43 is a large star forming region in its own right. It's just part of the star forming complex of gas and dust that includes the larger, more famous neighboring Messier 42, the Great Orion Nebula.