NGC 1499: The California Nebula
22.10.2022

Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,500 light-years from the California Nebula.

APOD: 2023 April 16 Б M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
16.04.2023

Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured here, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.

N81: Star Cradle in the SMC
5.10.2000

This dramatic Hubble Space Telescope image captures the birth of a cluster of massive stars. The newborn stars are seen just as they emerge from their natal nebula. Only 12 light-years across, the nebula...

AFGL 2591: A Massive Star Acts Up
29.08.2001

Young star AFGL 2591 is putting on a show. The massive star is expelling outer layers of dust-laced gas as gravity pulls inner material toward the surface. AFGL 2591 is estimated to be about...

M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
6.01.2002

Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.

Orion Nebula: The 2MASS View
20.04.2002

Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away.

The Rotating Jets of Comet Hyakutake
14.04.1996

Comet Hyakutake will reach its closest point to the Sun on May 1, passing well inside the orbit of Mercury. At this time, the comet's dust and ion tail will be at their greatest physical length.

A Sharper View of a Tilted Planet
18.11.2004

These sharp views of tilted gas giant Uranus show dramatic details of the planet's atmosphere and ring system. The remarkable ground-based images were made using a near-infrared camera and the Keck Adaptive Optics system to reduce the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere.

Exploring the Ring
18.09.2008

A familiar sight for northern hemisphere astronomers, the Ring Nebula (M57) is some 2,000 light-years away in the musical constellation Lyra. The central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep...

APOD: 2009 April 7 The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 274
7.04.2009

Two galaxies are squaring off in Virgo and here are the latest pictures. When two galaxies collide, the stars that compose them usually do not. This is because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small fraction of that space.