Inside The Elephant's Trunk
9.04.2005

In December of 2003, the world saw spectacular first images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, including this penetrating interior view of an otherwise opaque dark globule known as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. Seen...

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...

Comet over California
7.03.2008

Still gracing northern skies, a fading Comet Holmes lies at the top edge of this colorful skyview, recorded on March 4. The reddish emission nebula below it is NGC 1499, also known as the California Nebula for its resemblance to the outline of the state on the US west coast.

The Necklace Nebula
3.11.2010

The small constellation Sagitta sports this large piece of cosmic jewelry, dubbed the Necklace Nebula. The newly discovered example of a ring-shaped planetary nebula is about 15,000 light-years distant. Its bright ring with pearls of glowing gas is half a light-year across.

Hammer Versus Feather on the Moon
1.11.2011

If you drop a hammer and a feather together, which reaches the ground first? On the Earth, it's the hammer, but is the reason only because of air resistance? Scientists even before Galileo have pondered and tested this simple experiment and felt that without air resistance, all objects would fall the same way.

NGC 4414: A Flocculent Spiral Galaxy
20.11.2016

How much mass do flocculent spirals hide? The featured true color image of flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope to help answer this question. The featured image was augmented with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe
22.03.2018

Shiny NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, and also one of the dustiest. Some call it the Silver Dollar Galaxy for its appearance in small telescopes, or just the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor.

NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the LMC
3.10.2018

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this glittering jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away.

APOD: 2023 May 21 Б Tardigrade in Moss
21.05.2023

Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to be able to go for decades without...

APOD: 2023 May 23 Б Jupiters Swirls from Juno
23.05.2023

Big storms are different on Jupiter. On Earth, huge hurricanes and colossal cyclones are centered on regions of low pressure, but on Jupiter, it is the high-pressure, anti-cyclone storms that are the largest. On Earth, large storms can last weeks, but on Jupiter they can last years.