The Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus
24.08.1997

What slithers there? The dark winding lanes visible in part of the constellation Ophiuchus belong to the Snake Nebula. The Snake Nebula is a series of dark absorption clouds made up of Interstellar dust. Interstellar dust grains - composed predominantly of carbon - absorb visible starlight and reradiate much of it in the infrared.

Barnard 228: The Dark Wolf Nebula in Lupus
26.07.2018

These dark markings on the sky can just be found in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the southern constellation of Lupus the Wolf, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of the Lupus Molecular Cloud some 500 light-years distant.

Our Dusty Universe
21.01.1998

What's black & white and red all over? Add our universe to this list. Adrift in a vast sea of darkness are not only familiar bright stars but dust that glows predominantly in far-infrared light.

Our Dusty Universe
19.11.2000

What's black & white and red all over? Add our universe to this list. Adrift in a vast sea of darkness are not only familiar bright stars but dust that glows predominantly in far-infrared light.

Io: A Volcanic Moon
3.08.1995

In 1610, Galileo turned his telescope to the heavens and discovered that the planet Jupiter had four bright moons. The innermost of these Galilean moons, Io, turned out to be one of the most exotic objects in the solar system.

Fields of Minerals on Ganymede
7.11.1996

What treasures lie on the surface of Ganymede? Last week, NASA released a map of Jupiter's largest moon made by the Galileo Orbiter highlighting ice and minerals deposits. The leftmost photograph by Voyager...

Pillar at Sunset
6.03.2010

Reddened light from the setting Sun illuminates the cloud banks hugging this snowy, rugged terrain. Inspiring a moment of quiet contemplation, the sunset scene included a remarkable pillar of light that seemed to connect the clouds in the sky with the mountains below.

The Red Rectangle
2.11.1995

The unusual geometry of this stellar nebula creates somewhat of a mystery. At the nebula's center is a young binary star system that probably created the nebula, but how? This type of nebula shows a "bipolar flow" which carries a significant amount of mass away from the central stars.

Lasers in Eta Carinae
29.11.1997

Have you heard about the great LASER light show in the sky? A team led by K. Davidson (U. Michigan) and S. Johansson (U. Lund) discovered that the chaotically variable star Eta Carinae emits ultraviolet light in such a narrow band that it is most probably LASER light!

Io Full Face
29.10.1996

Io is a colorful place. The closest large moon of Jupiter, Io is the most volcanic moon in the Solar System with its surface being completely buried in volcanic lava every few thousand years.