The California Nebula
12.01.2016

What's California doing in space? Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States.

Young Stars of NGC 346
12.05.2022

The massive stars of NGC 346 are short lived, but very energetic. The star cluster is embedded in the largest star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 210,000 light-years distant. Their...

APOD: 2025 May 13 Б Gaia Reconstructs a Top View of our Galaxy
13.05.2025

What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the top? Because we are on the inside, humanity canБt get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using location data for over a billion stars from ESAБs Gaia mission.

Star Forming Region S106
20.02.2001

Massive star IRS4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 106 Nebula (S106), pictured above.

Sharpless 212 in Hydrogen and Sulfur
18.12.2001

Where do the most massive stars form? Observational evidence indicates that the outskirts of developing open clusters of stars are primary locations. Pictured above is one such open cluster: Sharpless 212. Visible in the image center are massive stars in the open cluster.

Inside the Eagle Nebula
11.06.2002

From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look of the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed.

Orion s Cradle
25.01.2007

Cradled in glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. This breath-taking view spans about 13 degrees across the center of the well-known constellation with the Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, just right of center.

Equinox and the Iron Sun
23.09.2010

Today, the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south at 03:09 Universal Time. Known as an equinox, this astronomical event marks the first day of autumn in the northern hemisphere and spring in the south. Equinox means equal night.

NGC 2170: Still Life with Reflecting Dust
7.07.2013

In this beautiful celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines at the upper left. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a compact red emission region, and streamers of obscuring dust against a backdrop of stars.

The Elephant s Trunk Nebula in Cepheus
19.01.2017

Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Also known as vdB 142, the cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long.