NGC 1499: The California Nebula
24.09.2006

What's California doing in space? 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.

BOOMERANG Images The Early Universe
3.05.2000

Drifting through the stratosphere above Antarctica in late 1998, the balloon-borne BOOMERANG telescope peered into the cosmos at millimeter wavelengths. The blotchy structures it detected are seen above in the sharpest yet picture of the universe at an early age, perhaps a mere 300,000 years old.

Messier 5
3.08.2012

"Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ..." begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous catalog of nebulae and star clusters. Though it appeared...

The Beautiful Trifid
25.07.2013

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

A Dark and Dusty Sky
22.05.2015

In the dusty sky toward the constellation Taurus and the Orion Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy, this broad mosaic follows dark and faint reflection nebulae along the region's fertile molecular cloud.

M42: Inside the Orion Nebula
30.10.2019

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away.

Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur
4.10.2020

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.

North of Orion s Belt
5.11.2020

Bright stars, interstellar clouds of dust and glowing nebulae fill this cosmic scene, a skyscape just north of Orion's belt. Close to the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, the wide field view spans just under 5 degrees or about 10 full moons on the sky.

APOD: 2023 January 25 Б LDN 1622: The Boogeyman Nebula
25.01.2023

To some, the dark shape looks like a mythical boogeyman. Scientifically, Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in long telescopic exposures of the region.

The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
26.09.2024

In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, "This is but a little Patch, but it shows itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." Of course...