Curiosity Rover Finds a Clay Cache on Mars
29.10.2019

Why is there clay on Mars? On Earth, clay can form at the bottom of a peaceful lake when specific minerals trap water. At the pictured site on Mars, the robotic rover Curiosity drilled into two rocks and found the highest concentration of clay yet.

Shadow Set
27.01.2005

A nearly full Moon and planet Earth's shadow set together in this scene captured Monday from snowy Mt. Jelm, home of the Wyoming Infrared Observatory. For early morning risers (and late...

MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula
16.04.2007

What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as MWC 922, however, appears to be imbedded in a nebula with just such a shape. The above image combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt.

Rings Around the Ring Nebula
15.07.2018

There is much more to the familiar Ring Nebula (M57), however, than can be seen through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep exposure...

Facing NGC 6946
26.07.2024

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars in the high and far-off constellation Cepheus.

Rings Around the Ring Nebula
13.08.2014

It is a familiar sight to sky enthusiasts with even a small telescope. There is much more to the Ring Nebula (M57), however, than can be seen through a small telescope. The easily visible...

M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
15.11.2023

Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star.

M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
8.05.2025

Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star.

Facing NGC 6946
10.04.2004

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 10 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground stars in the high and far-off constellation of Cepheus.

Descent to Titan
14.01.2005

Today's descent to the surface of Titan by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe is the most distant landing ever attempted by a spacecraft from Earth. At 10:13 UT (5:13am...