Andromeda Island Universe
23.01.2008

The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda.

Haute Provence Star Trails
13.03.2009

Fix your camera to a tripod and you can record the graceful trails traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis. For example, this dramatic 5 hour long exposure was made on February 24 from Haute-Provence Observatory (OHP) in southeastern France.

A Beautiful Trifid
30.05.2009

The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a colorful study in cosmic contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region...

Bright Points on the Quiet Sun
16.04.2010

Up close, the solar surface is a striking patch work of granules in this very high resolution picture of the quiet Sun. Caused by convection, the granules are hot, rising columns of plasma edged by dark lanes of cooler, descending plasma.

Alpha Centauri: The Closest Star System
3.07.2011

The closest star system to the Sun is the Alpha Centauri system. Of the three stars in the system, the dimmest -- called Proxima Centauri -- is actually the nearest star. The bright stars Alpha Centauri...

Star Formation in the Tarantula Nebula
16.05.2012

The largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies lies in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Were the Tarantula Nebula at the distance of the Orion Nebula -- a local star forming region -- it would take up fully half the sky.

Halloween and the Ghost Head Nebula
29.10.2016

Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere).

The Stars of the Triangulum Galaxy
22.02.2019

Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, stars of the Triangulum Galaxy are resolved in this sharp mosaic from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The inner region of the galaxy spanning over 17,000 light-years is covered at extreme resolution, the second largest image ever released by Hubble.

PDS 70: Disk, Planets, and Moons
23.08.2021

It's not the big disk that's attracting the most attention. Although the big planet-forming disk around the star PDS 70 is clearly imaged and itself quite interesting. It's also not the planet on the right, just inside the big disk, thatБs being talked about the most.

The Bubble Nebula from Hubble
22.03.2022

Massive stars can blow bubbles. The featured image shows perhaps the most famous of all star-bubbles, NGC 7635, also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Although it looks delicate, the 7-light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work.