Blue Sun Bristling
4.11.2009

Our Sun may look like all soft and fluffy, but it's not. Our Sun is an extremely large ball of bubbling hot gas, mostly hydrogen gas. The above picture...

AE Aurigae: The Flaming Star
4.12.2001

Is star AE Aurigae on fire? Although surrounded by what may look like smoke, the object known as the "flaming star" creates energy primarily by nuclear fusion, like other stars. Fire, typically defined...

Atmospheric Ring of Venus
8.06.2020

Why is Venus surrounded by a bright ring? Sometimes called a ring of fire, this rare ring is caused by the Sun's light being visible all around an object. Usually seen around...

Circular Sun Halo
14.10.2023

Want to see a ring around the Sun? It's easy to do in daytime skies around the world. Created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin high cirrus clouds, circular 22 degree halos are visible much more often than rainbows.

The Flame Nebula in Visible and Infrared
8.12.2014

What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears, on the left, like a billowing fire. But fire, the rapid acquisition of oxygen, is not what makes this Flame glow.

Circular Sun Halo
10.06.2021

Want to see a ring around the Sun? It's easy to do in daytime skies around the world. Created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin high cirrus clouds, circular 22 degree halos are visible much more often than rainbows. This one was captured by smart phone photography on May 29 near Rome, Italy.

A Partial Eclipse Over Manila Bay
20.05.2012

What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! In early 2009, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In particular the above image, taken from the Mall of Asia seawall, caught a partially eclipsed Sun setting over Manila Bay in the Philippines.

A Desert Eclipse
13.01.2020

A good place to see a ring-of-fire eclipse, it seemed, would be from a desert. In a desert, there should be relatively few obscuring clouds and trees. Therefore late last December a group...

Colorful Arcs over Buenos Aires
15.12.2015

What are those colorful arcs in the sky? Like rainbows that are caused by rain, arcs of sunlight broken up into component colors can also result when ice crystals floating in Earth's atmosphere act together as a gigantic prism.

The Flame Nebula in Infrared
12.01.2010

What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears, on the left, like a billowing fire. But fire, the rapid acquisition of oxygen, is not what makes this Flame glow.