A Distant Cluster of Galaxies
13.01.1996

Every bright object in this 1994 photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope is a galaxy. Oddly - most of the objects are spiral galaxies. This rich cluster of galaxies, named CL 0939+4713, is almost half way across the visible universe.

Gamma-Ray Burst: A Milestone Explosion
2.07.1997

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) were discovered by accident. In fact, GRBs always seem to be where scientists least expect them. Thirty years ago today, satellites first recorded a GRB. The burst data plotted in this histogram show that the count rate of the gamma-ray instrument abruptly jumped indicating a sudden flash of gamma-rays.

A GRB 000301C Symphony
13.03.2000

Telescopic instruments in Earth and space are still tracking a tremendous explosion that occurred across the universe. A nearly unprecedented symphony of international observations began abruptly on March 1 when Earth-orbiting RXTE, Sun-orbiting Ulysses, and asteroid-orbiting NEAR all detected a 10-second burst of high-frequency gamma radiation.

Cancri 55 e: Climate Patterns on a Lava World
4.04.2016

Why might you want to visit super-earth Cancri 55 e? Its extremely hot climate would be a deterrent, as mornings on this world might bring fresh lava flows. Discovered in 2004, the planet Cancri 55 e has twice the diameter of our Earth and about 10 times Earth's mass.

Shapley 1: An Annular Planetary Nebula
25.06.2000

What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel? The center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmospheric layers are expelled into space and appear as a planetary nebula. This particular planetary nebula, designated Shapley 1 after the famous astronomer Harlow Shapley, has a very apparent annular ring like structure.

Shapley 1: An Annular Planetary Nebula
14.02.1997

What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel? The center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmospheric layers are expelled into space and appear as a planetary nebula. This particular planetary nebula, designated Shapley 1 after the famous astronomer Harlow Shapley, has a very apparent annular ring like structure.

The Case of the Missing Aurora
21.10.1998

Sometimes, near midnight, auroras suddenly stop. Nobody knows why. This nightside gap in aurora was confirmed recently by D. Chua (U. Washington) and colleagues in data from the Ultraviolet Imager onboard the Polar spacecraft.

Catching Falling Stardust
20.11.1998

This carrot shaped track is actually little more than 5 hundredths of an inch long. It is the trail of a meteroid through the high-tech substance aerogel exposed to space by the shuttle launched EURECA (European Recoverable Carrier) spacecraft.

Radioactive Clouds in the Milky Way
28.10.1995

When massive stars explode they create large radioactive blast clouds which expand into interstellar space. As the radioactive elements decay, they produce gamma-rays. Possible locations of these stellar explosions known as supernovae, are indicated by the bright clumps in this map of the central regions of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Water World
15.03.1997

Water (Dihydrogen Oxide, H2O) is a truly remarkable chemical compound, fundamental to life on Earth. Earth is the only planet in the Solar System where the surface temperature and pressure allow the three forms of water, solid (ice), liquid (ocean), and gas (water vapor condensing in clouds) to exist simultaneously on its surface.