The Galaxy, the Jet, and a Famous Black Hole
4.05.2023

Bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is home to the supermassive black hole captured in 2017 by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope in the first ever image of a black hole. Giant...

NGC 1068 and the X Ray Flashlight
11.07.2003

At night, tilting a flashlight up under your chin hides the glowing bulb from the direct view of your friends. Light from the bulb still reflects from your face though, and can give you a startling appearance.

The Galactic Core in Infrared
17.01.2015

What's happening at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have combined their efforts to survey the region in unprecedented detail in infrared light. Milky Way's center because visible light is more greatly obscured by dust.

Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturns Ring Plane
29.12.2019

If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn's unusual protrusions were rings and that when the Earth crosses the ring plane, the edge-on rings will appear to disappear.

The Galaxy, the Jet, and a Famous Black Hole
9.05.2024

Bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is home to the supermassive black hole captured in 2017 by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope in the first ever image of a black hole. Giant...

Comet Tsuchinshan ATLAS Flys Away
19.10.2024

These six panels follow daily apparitions of comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as it moved away from our fair planet during the past week. The images were taken with the same camera and lens at the indicated dates and locations from California, planet Earth.

IRAS 20324: Evaporating Protostar
4.09.2013

Will this caterpillar-shaped interstellar cloud one day evolve into a butterfly-shaped nebula? No one is sure. What is sure is that IRAS 20324+4057, on the inside, is contracting to form a new star.

The Boomerang Nebula in Polarized Light
14.09.2005

Why did the Boomerang Nebula form? The symmetric cloud dubbed the Boomerang appears to have been created by a high-speed wind of gas and dust blowing from an aging central star at speeds of nearly 600,000 kilometers per hour.

M27: Not A Comet
26.06.2008

Born on June 26th in 1730, astronomer Charles Messier scanned 18th century French skies for comets. To avoid confusion and aid his comet hunting, he diligently recorded this object as number 27 on his list of things which are definitely not comets.

Views from Cassini at Saturn
18.06.2017

What has the Cassini orbiter seen at Saturn? The featured music video shows some of the early highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears that is really Saturn's thin rings seen nearly edge-on. Soon some of Saturn's moon shoot past.