The Powerful Sumatra Andaman Islands Earthquake
1.03.2005

December's 9.0 earthquake has likely shortened Earth's day by about three microseconds and may also have tweaked Earth's rotational wobble. The megathrust earthquake occurred as the Indian tectonic plate slid further beneath the Burma tectonic plate.

The Orion Nebula from VLT
29.01.2001

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. But this image, a representative-color composite...

APOD: 2024 February 20 Б AM1054: Stars Form as Galaxies Collide
19.02.2024

When galaxies collide, how many stars are born? For AM1054-325, featured here in a recently released image by the Hubble Space Telescope, the answer is millions. Instead of stars being destroyed as galaxy AM1054-325 and a nearby galaxy circle each other, their gravity and motion has ignited stellar creation.

Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158
26.02.2025

Framed in this single, starry, telescopic field of view are two open star clusters, M35 and NGC 2158. Located within the boundaries of the constellation Gemini, they do appear to be side by side. Its stars concentrated toward the upper right, M35 is relatively nearby, though.

The Infrared Visible Andromeda
12.12.2014

This remarkable synthetic color composite image was assembled from archives of visible light and infrared astronomy image data. The field of view spans the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), a massive spiral a mere 2.5 million light-years away. In fact, with over twice the diameter of our own Milky Way, Andromeda is the largest nearby galaxy.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3982 Before Supernova
2.11.2003

What do stars look like just before they explode? To find out, astronomers are taking detailed images of nearby galaxies now, before any supernova is visible. Hopefully, a star in one of the hundreds of high resolution galaxy images will explode in the coming years.

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
7.02.1997

The famous Sombrero galaxy (M104) is a bright nearby spiral galaxy. The prominent dust lane and halo of stars and globular clusters give this galaxy its name. Something very energetic is going on in the Sombrero's center, as much X-ray light has been detected from it.

The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
20.03.2006

Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does.

APOD: 2024 March 27 Б The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
26.03.2024

Almost every object in the featured photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured here is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does.

The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
12.12.1997

Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies house billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way Galaxy does.