X-Ray Pleiades
5.04.1998

The Pleiades star cluster is one of the jewels of the northern sky. To the unaided eye it appears as a lovely and tantalizing grouping of stars in the constellation of Taurus, while telescopic views reveal cluster stars surrounded by delicate blue wisps of dust-reflected starlight.

Inside the Eagle Nebula
21.09.2003

From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look of the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed.

NGC 281: Cluster, Clouds, and Globules
21.09.1998

NGC 281 is a busy workshop of star formation. Prominent features include a small open cluster of stars, a diffuse red-glowing emission nebula, large lanes of obscuring gas and dust, and dense knots of dust and gas in which stars may still be forming.

SOFIA s Mirror
22.10.2004

The candy-dish appearance of this high-tech astronomical mirror is striking. Made of a special glass ceramic material called Zerodur, it actually measures 2.7 meters across. The transparent surface has not yet received a reflective...

X-Ray Pleiades
28.08.1999

The Pleiades star cluster is one of the jewels of the northern sky. To the unaided eye it appears as an alluring group of stars in the constellation Taurus, while telescopic views reveal cluster stars surrounded by delicate blue wisps of dust-reflected starlight.

Seven Dusty Sisters
13.04.2007

Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known in astronomical images for its striking blue reflection nebulae. At visible wavelengths...

I Zwicky 18: The Case of the Aging Galaxy
17.10.2007

How old is this galaxy? The galaxy on the left, I Zwicky 18, was once thought to be one of the youngest galaxies on record since its bright stars indicated an age of only 500 million years.

Expansive Comet Holmes
20.11.2007

The spherical coma of Comet Holmes has swollen to a diameter of over 1.4 million kilometers, making the tenuous, dusty cloud even bigger than the Sun. Scattering sunlight, all that dust and gas came...

M74: The Perfect Spiral
30.11.2007

If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view.

Young Stars of NGC 346
28.09.2008

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...