The Opposing Tails of Comet Garradd
28.02.2012

Why does Comet Garradd have two tails? Visible on the left, Comet Garradd's dust tail is composed of ice and dust bits that trial the comet in its orbit around the Sun. Visible...

IC 59 and IC 63 in Cassiopeia
26.10.2018

These bright rims and flowing shapes look ghostly on a cosmic scale. A telescopic view toward the constellation Cassiopeia, the colorful (zoomable) skyscape features the swept-back, comet-shaped clouds IC 59 (left) and IC 63.

The Large Cloud of Magellan
16.10.2010

The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily...

The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty
11.06.2015

This colorful skyscape spans about three full moons (1.5 degrees) across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of the region...

Sharpless 308: The Dolphin Nebula
2.03.2020

Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is much larger than the dolphin it appears to be. Cataloged as Sharpless 2-308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major) and covers slightly more of the sky than a Full Moon.

The Color of IC 1795
13.10.2011

This sharp cosmic portrait features glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. Also cataloged as NGC 896, the nebula's remarkable details, shown...

A Flight through the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
27.08.2013

What would it look like to fly through the distant universe? To find out, a team of astronomers estimated the relative distances to over 5,000 galaxies in one of the most distant fields of galaxies ever imaged: the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF).

Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant
18.05.2017

It's easy to get lost following intricate filaments in this detailed image of faint supernova remnant Simeis 147. Also cataloged as Sharpless 2-240 it goes by the popular nickname, the Spaghetti Nebula. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky.

The Ghostly Tail of Comet SWAN
6.11.2006

What causes the structure in Comet SWAN's tail? Comet SWAN, which unexpectedly flared up to naked-eye brightness last week, has been showing detail in its ion tail that might be described as ghostly.

Star Forming Region NGC 3582
28.04.2008

What's happening in the NGC 3582 nebula? Bright stars and interesting molecules are forming. The complex nebula resides in the star forming region called RCW 57. Visible in this image are dense knots...