Companion of a Young Sun like Star
19.09.2008

Located just 500 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius, this star is only slightly less massive and a little cooler than the Sun. But it is much younger, a few million years old compared to the middle-aged Sun's 5 billion years.

MAGIC Star Trails
14.10.2011

Colorful star trails arc across the night in this surreal timelapse skyscape from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary island of La Palma. A reflection of the Earth's daily rotation on its axis, the star trails are also reflected in one of a pair of 17 meter diameter, multi-mirrored MAGIC telescopes.

Night in the Andes Ice Forest
7.09.2013

This forest of snow and ice penitentes reflects moonlight shinning across the Chajnantor plateau. The region lies in the Chilean Andes at an altitude of 5,000 meters, not far from one of planet Earth's major astronomical observatories, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.

A Step Toward Gravitational Wave Detection
30.10.2000

Accelerate a charge and you'll get electromagnetic radiation: light. But accelerate any mass and you'll get gravitational radiation. Light is seen all the time, but, so far, a confirmed direct detection of gravitational radiation has yet to be made.

Galactic Center Flicker Indicates Black Hole
10.09.2001

Why would the center of our Galaxy flicker? Many astronomers believe the only credible answer involves a black hole. During observations of Sagittarius A* with the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, the bright X-ray source at the very center of our Milky Way brightened dramatically for a few minutes.

Solar Wind And Milky Way
4.03.1997

The Sun is bright, so bright that it overwhelms the light from other stars even for most satellite-borne telescopes. But LASCO, a coronograph onboard the space-based SOHO Observatory, uses occulting disks to block the intense solar light and examine the tenuous, hot gases millions of miles above the Sun's surface.

Stars Forming in Serpens
31.08.2007

Stars are forming in a dense molecular cloud a mere 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens Cauda (The Serpent's Tail). At that estimated distance, this sharp, near-infrared close-up of the active Serpens star-forming region spans about 2 arcminutes or just over half a light-year.

Endeavour in the Moon
20.11.2008

Glaring near the top of the frame, the shuttle orbiter Endeavour rockets into the night on the STS-126 mission. Endeavour left planet Earth on November 14 from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, making the 27th flight to the International Space Station.

Dust and the NGC 7771 Group
21.01.2010

Galaxies of the NGC 7771 Group are featured in this intriguing skyscape. Some 200 million light-years distant toward the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7771 is the large, edge-on spiral near center, about 75,000 light-years across, with two smaller galaxies just below it. Large spiral NGC 7769 is seen face-on to the right.

All the Colors of the Sun
28.06.2015

It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Here are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device.