The Orion Nebula in Hydrogen
22.11.2000

The Great Nebula in Orion can be found just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. This fuzzy patch, visible to the unaided eye, contains one of the closest stellar nurseries, lying at a distance of about 1500 light years.

Starburst Ring in Galaxy NGC 1317
11.12.1996

Where do stars form? A typical place is an area of dense nebular gas common to arms in spiral galaxies. Sometimes, however, a burst of star formation can occur with unusual geometry. Nearby galaxy NGC 1317 shows such an unusual ring of star formation surrounding its barred nucleus.

WR124: Stellar Fireball
9.11.1998

Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot they are disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each over 30 times more massive than the Earth are being expelled by a violent stellar wind.

Space Station in the Sun
24.05.2008

Still bathed in sunlight, the International Space Station tracked through night skies above Hombressen, Germany on May 12. From a range of at least 360 kilometers, astronomer Dirk Ewers was able to record...

3C175: Quasar Cannon
5.09.2001

3C175 is not only a quasar, it is a galaxy-fueled particle cannon. Visible as the central dot is quasar 3C175, the active center of a galaxy so distant that the light we see from it was emitted when the Earth was just forming.

M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs
25.11.2001

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars.

M16: Stars from Eagle's Eggs
24.09.2000

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that

Proplyds: Infant Solar Systems
11.09.1995

The fuzzy blobs seen above may be some of the first ever images of entire solar systems forming right before our eyes. This close up of the Orion Nebulae taken by the Hubble Space...

The Cygnus Loop
25.07.1999

The shockwave from a 20,000 year-old supernova in the constellation of Cygnus supernova explosion is still expanding into interstellar space. The collision of this fast moving wall of gas with a stationary cloud...

M16: Stars from Eagles EGGs
26.10.2003

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars.