Rungs of the Red Rectangle
13.05.2004

A distinctive X-shape and ladder-like rungs appear in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the intriguing Red Rectangle Nebula. The dusty cosmic cloud was originally identified as a strong source of infrared radiation and is now believed to contain icy dust grains and hydrocarbon molecules formed in the cool outflow from an aging central star.

Magnetar In The Sky
21.01.2000

Indicated on this infrared image of the galactic center region is the position of SGR 1900+14 - the strongest known magnet in the galaxy. SGR 1900+14 is believed to be a city-sized, spinning, super-magnetic neutron star, or Magnetar. How strong is a Magnetar's magnetic field?

The Strange Tailing Side of Saturns Iapetus
10.10.2007

What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is unknown, but infrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains some dark form of carbon.

Saturns Iapetus: Painted Moon
2.06.2018

What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is unknown, but infrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains some dark form of carbon.

T Tauri: A Star is Formed
3.08.2009

What does a star look like when it is forming? The prototypical example is the variable star T Tauri, visible as the bright orange star near the image center. The orange star centered in this remarkable telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars.

Ring Nebula Deep Field
5.11.2009

A familiar sight to sky enthusiasts with even a small telescope, the Ring Nebula (M57) is some 2,000 light-years away in the musical constellation Lyra. The central ring is about one light-year across...

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star
29.12.2012

Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta...

The Quiet Sagittarius A
6.09.2013

Hot gas is hard to swallow. At least that seems to be true for the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Known as source Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's black hole is centered in this infrared (red and yellow hues) and X-ray (blue) composite.

Journey to the Center of the Galaxy
28.07.2018

What wonders lie at the center of our Galaxy? In Jules Verne's science fiction classic A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Liedenbrock and his fellow explorers encounter many strange and exciting wonders.

Lyman Alpha Blob
2.07.2009

Dubbed a Lyman-alpha blob, an enormous cloud of hydrogen gas spans several hundred thousand light-years in this remarkable image (left), a composite of x-ray, optical, and infrared data from space and ground based observatories.