When Gemini Sends Stars to Paranal
12.12.2015

From a radiant point in the constellation of the Twins, the annual Geminid meteor shower rain down on planet Earth. Tonight, the Geminds reach their peak and could be quite spectacular. The featured blended image, however, captured the shower's impressive peak in the year 2012.

Sharpless 308: Star Bubble
22.06.2015

Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. 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.

Stars and Dust Across Corona Australis
27.09.2012

Cosmic dust clouds sprawl across a rich field of stars in this sweeping telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Probably less than 500 light-years away and effectively blocking...

Star Trails and the Equinox Sunrise
20.03.2019

Stars trail and the Sun rises in this night and day composite panorama made on March 19. The view looks toward the eastern horizon from La Nava de Santiago, Spain. To create...

Stars, Dust, and Gas near NGC 3572
27.05.2019

Star formation can be colorful. This chromatic cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust near some recently formed stars of NGC 3572, a little-studied star cluster near the Carina Nebula. Stars from...

Wolf Rayet Star 124: Stellar Wind Machine
7.03.2020

Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot that they are slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each typically over 30 times more massive than the Earth are being expelled by violent stellar winds.

TT Cygni: Carbon Star
3.03.2001

TT Cygni is a cool red giant star with a wind. This false-color picture of TT Cyg was made using a coordinated array of millimeter wavelength radio telescopes and shows radio emission from carbon monoxide (CO) molecules in the surrounding gas.

Star Streams and the Whale Galaxy
18.12.2015

NGC 4631 is a spiral galaxy found only 25 million light-years away, toward the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. Seen ege-on, the galaxy is similar in size to the Milky Way. Its distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others its popular moniker, The Whale Galaxy.

Alpha Centauri: The Closest Star System
3.07.2011

The closest star system to the Sun is the Alpha Centauri system. Of the three stars in the system, the dimmest -- called Proxima Centauri -- is actually the nearest star. The bright stars Alpha Centauri...

Fireworks and Shooting Stars
9.08.2002

Experimenting with a new telescope and camera, photographer Jim Steele captured this surreal but festive image of fireworks in the night sky above Ashland, Oregon. The date was July 4th and the fiery streaks were part of the traditional annual celebration of independence day in the United States.