NGC 6369: A Donut Shaped Nebula
18.05.1998

Why isn't the star in the center of the nebula? NGC 6369 appears to be a fairly ordinary planetary nebula. It can be seen with a good telescope in the constellation of Ophiuchus. The gas expelled by the central star is bunched in the shape of a donut or cylinder.

The Earth Also Rises
13.10.1996

The Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft was launched in 1966 to map the lunar surface in preparation for the Apollo moon landings. NASA's plucky robotic explorer performed its job well and pioneered this classic view of the Earth poised above the lunar horizon.

A Northern Summer s Night
7.07.2018

Near a summer's midnight a mist haunts the river bank in this dreamlike skyscape taken on July 3rd from northern Denmark. Reddened light from the Sun a little below the horizon gives an eerie tint to low hanging clouds.

Astro 1 In Orbit
17.08.1997

In December of 1990, the Space Shuttle Columbia carried an array of astronomical telescopes high above the Earth's obscuring atmosphere to observe the Universe at ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths. The telescopes, known...

Aurora Over Alaska
4.03.1998

Higher than the highest mountain, higher than the highest airplane, lies the realm of the aurora. Aurora rarely reach below 60 kilometers, and can range up to 1000 kilometers. Aurora light results from solar electrons and protons striking molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

Looking Back on an Eclipsed Earth
30.08.1999

Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour.

Cosmic Ripples Implicate Dark Universe
29.05.2002

What may appear fuzzy to some makes things crystal clear to others. The cosmic microwave background radiation emanating from the universe could only have the above fuzzy pattern if it contained clear amounts of dark matter and dark energy.

NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery in M33
16.08.1996

The nebula cataloged as NGC 604 is a giant star forming region, 1500 light years across, in the nearby spiral galaxy, M33. Seen here in a snapshot by the Hubble Space Telescope, over 200 newly formed, hot, massive, stars are scattered within a cavern-like, gaseous, interstellar cloud.

Why is QSO 1229+204 so Bright?
24.08.1996

What causes the center of this barred spiral galaxy to light up brighter than almost anything in the universe? The quasar there is a good fraction of the way across our observable universe...

A Solar Corona Ejection
8.11.1996

The Sun would not be a nice place to spend the summer. One reason, besides the extreme heat, is that explosions are common there. In the above picture, magnetic fields buckle releasing previously constrained hot material from the upper atmosphere of the Sun.