M1: The Crab Nebula
20.11.2014

The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star, witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054.

XZ Tauri System Ejects Gas Bubble
21.09.2000

Why is the binary star system XZ Tauri emitting a hot bubble of expanding gas? Although astronomers can only presently speculate, the Hubble Space Telescope clearly documents this unusual behavior in three dramatic photographs over the past five years.

In the Heart of the Crab
5.06.2000

The supernova explosion that formed the Crab Nebula was first seen on the year 1054. Last week, astronomers released a new image of the still-evolving center of the explosion. The above representative-color photograph...

The Hyades Star Cluster
21.01.2020

It is the closest cluster of stars to the Sun. The Hyades open cluster is bright enough to have been remarked on even thousands of years ago, yet is not as bright or compact as the nearby Pleiades (M45) star cluster.

IRAS 05437 2502: An Enigmatic Star Cloud from Hubble
9.08.2010

What's lighting up nebula IRAS 05437+2502? No one is sure. Particularly enigmatic is the bright upside-down V that defines the upper edge of this floating mountain of interstellar dust, visible near the image center.

Apollo 17 Site: A Sharper View
8.09.2011

This view of the Apollo 17 landing site in the Taurus-Littrow valley was captured last month by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the sharpest ever recorded from space. The high resolution image data...

Rosetta's Comet in View
9.09.2021

Faint comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) sweeps past background stars in the constellation Taurus and even fainter distant galaxies in this telescopic frame from September 7. About 5 years ago, this comet's 4 kilometer spanning...

M1: The Crab Nebula
23.12.2021

The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star, witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054.

Comet Lovejoy s Tail
16.01.2015

Sweeping north in planet Earth's sky, Comet Lovejoy's greenish coma and blue tinted ion tail stretched across this field of stars in the constellation Taurus on January 13. The inset at the upper left shows the 1/2 degree angular size of the full moon for scale.

APOD: 2024 September 29 Б Seven Dusty Sisters
28.09.2024

Is this really the famous Pleiades star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleiades is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here, three infrared colors have been mapped into visual colors (R=24, G=12, B=4.6 microns).