Young Stars of NGC 346
11.05.2022

The massive stars of NGC 346 are short lived, but very energetic. The star cluster is embedded in the largest star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 210,000 light-years distant. Their...

APOD: 2025 July 30 Б Coronal Loops on the Sun
29.07.2025

Our Sun frequently erupts in loops. Hot solar plasma jumps off the Sun's surface into prominences, with the most common type of prominence being a simple loop. The loop shape originates from the Sun's magnetic field, which is traced by spiraling electrons and protons.

Saturn The Giant
25.05.2001

Forty years ago today (May 25, 1961) U.S. president John Kennedy announced the goal of landing Americans on the Moon by the end of the decade. Kennedy's ambitious speech triggered a nearly unprecedented peacetime technological mobilization and one result was the Saturn V moon rocket.

Galaxy Group HCG 87
31.07.2003

Posing for this cosmic family photo are the galaxies of HCG (Hickson Compact Group) 87, about four hundred million light-years distant toward the amphibious constellation Capricornus. The large edge-on spiral near picture center...

Comet Hale-Bopp Outbound
10.09.1997

Hale-Bopp, the Comet of the Century, is leaving the inner Solar System. Outbound at about 12 miles per second it is presently nearing the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This false-color image represents a recent view from low Earth orbit showing the comet surrounded by its shrinking coma against a background of stars.

T Pyxidis: Recurrent Nova
25.09.1997

What happens when a thermonuclear blast occurs on the surface of a white dwarf star? Over the years astronomers have watched (at a safe distance ...) as, 6,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Pyxis, a binary star known as T Pyxidis repeatedly produces these fearsome explosions.

Uranian Moons, Rings, And Clouds
25.11.1997

The giant planet Uranus is faint and featureless when viewed in visible light. But this pair of near-infrared mosaics from the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS camera reveals moons, rings, and clouds of this distant gas planet.

NGC 4676: When Mice Collide
12.06.2004

These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as "The Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. They will probably collide again and again until they coalesce.

The Galaxy Within Centaurus A
3.03.2006

Peering deep inside Centaurus A, the closest active galaxy to Earth, the Spitzer Space Telescope's penetrating infrared cameras recorded this startling vista in February 2004. About 1,000 light-years across, the twisted cosmic...

Z is for Mars
22.04.2006

This composite of images spaced about a week apart - from late July 2005 (bottom right) through February 2006 (top left) - traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars through planet Earth's night sky. On November 7th, 2005 the Red Planet was opposite the Sun in Earth's sky (at opposition).