Near the Nucleus of Hyakutake
28.03.1996

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the near-nuclear region of Comet Hyakutake on March 25 as the comet approached within 9.3 million miles of the Earth. It covers a relatively "small" 2,000 mile wide area with the sunward direction toward the lower right (tailward is upper left).

A Cosmic Snowball
30.05.1997

Like cosmic snowballs, fluffy comet-like objects the size of houses and composed mostly of water-ice, may be pummeling planet Earth 5 to 30 times a minute. This controversial theory was originally proposed in 1986 by Dr. Louis Frank (U. Iowa) based on data from NASA's Dynamics Explorer 1.

Optical Transient Near GRB970508 Shows Distant Redshift
13.05.1997

The GRB distance scale controversy may have just ended with a flash. Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are powerful explosions occurring in seemingly random positions on the sky. They are so featureless and so poorly resolved, however, that their distances could not be determined.

The GRB 110328A Symphony
19.04.2011

A symphony of planet-wide observations began abruptly on March 28 when the Earth-orbiting Swift satellite detected a burst of high-frequency gamma-rays from GRB 110328A. When the same source flared again after a 45 minute pause it was clear this event was not a typical gamma-ray burst.

RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant
10.11.2011

In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism - a part of the sky identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts. The new star was visible for months and is thought to be the earliest recorded supernova.

An ALMA Telescope Array Time Lapse
26.05.2014

It is the most expensive and complex ground-based astronomy project ever -- what will it see tonight? The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) project consists of 66 dishes, many the size of a small house, situated in the high altitude Atacama Desert in Northern Chile.

Gravel Ejected from Asteroid Bennu
16.09.2020

Why does asteroid Bennu eject gravel into space? No one is sure. The discovery, occurring during several episodes by NASA's visiting ORISIS-REx spacecraft, was unexpected. Leading ejection hypotheses include impacts by Sun-orbiting meteoroids, sudden thermal fractures of internal structures, and the sudden release of a water vapor jet.

Exploring The Universe With IUE (1978-1996)
30.09.1996

How do planets, stars, and galaxies form? How do they evolve? The International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite was launched in 1978 and operated by NASA/ ESA/ PPARC to help provide answers to some of the most fundamental questions about the contents of our universe.

The Broad Tail of PanSTARRS
30.03.2013

For northern hemisphere skygazers, fading Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) still hangs above the western horzion, after sunset but before moonrise in the coming days. Its perspective from planet Earth continues to reveal the comet's broad dust tail.

Gamma-Ray Burst: A Milestone Explosion
2.07.1997

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) were discovered by accident. In fact, GRBs always seem to be where scientists least expect them. Thirty years ago today, satellites first recorded a GRB. The burst data plotted in this histogram show that the count rate of the gamma-ray instrument abruptly jumped indicating a sudden flash of gamma-rays.