Astronomy Picture of the Day . NGC 4603 and the Expanding Universe . 27.05.1999 . ... Its distance has been accurately measured by astronomers using one of the fundamental yardsticks of the extragalactic distance scale - pulsating variable stars known as Cepheids. ... Two weeks ago, the BATSE instrument on the orbiting NASA Great Observatory Compton detected unusually bright flashes of gamma-rays from a point deep in the southern sky. NGC 6872: A Stretched Spiral . ... The Keyhole Nebula . ...

... 2013 August 26 . Bright Planetary Nebula NGC 7027 from Hubble . Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive , ESA , NASA ; Processing: Delio Tolivia Cadrecha . ... Studying Hubble images of NGC 7027 have led to the understanding that it is a planetary nebula that began expanding about 600 years ago , and that the cloud of gas and dust is unusually massive as it appears to contain about three times the mass of our Sun. ... About APOD | ... NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply . ...

In this gallery are many images of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies which have recently been discovered and analyzed. ... The central surface brightness of this galaxy is 24.28 . Malin 2 This galaxy is another huge disk galaxy with a scale length of 15 kpc and a redshift of 15000 km/a. The high surface brightness knot in one of its spiral arms actually has the same color, luminosity and H-alpha equivalent width as the entire Large Magellanic Cloud . ... Truly it is a Low Surface Brightness Galaxy. ...

... An international team of astronomers has discovered a new magnificent example of a planetary nebula showing fast moving jets. ... Finally, the envelope is ejected as a planetary nebula and the two stars are now orbiting around each other in a frenetic cosmic waltz. ... The paper, just accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is available on astro-ph (ETHOS 1: A high latitude planetary nebula with jets forged by a post common envelope binary central star, by B. Miszalski et al.)...

Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . This page is devoted to information on Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . Basic information on this SN, including the last reported brightness, on this Supernova can be found on the main page . Information on the original web pages for many of these images can be found on the updates and links web pages. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (USA) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan). ... 2009/10/11.44 . 17.2 . ... Joseph Brimacombe . ...

UC Santa Cruz Press Release: Astronomers discover an enormous halo of red giant stars around Andromeda 4/1/08 10:54 PM January 7, 2007 Contact: Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; stephens@ucsc.edu Astronomers discover an enormous halo of red giant stars around Andromeda Astronomers have found an enormous halo of stars bound to the Andromeda galaxy and extending far beyond the swirling disk seen in images of the famous galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor. ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Donate to Support Science Literacy . ... 2016 Annual Awards . The ASP is accepting nominations for the organizationтАЩs national annual awards which recognize special achievements in astronomy research, technology, education, and public outreach. ... Shop the AstroShop . ... The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) is accepting nominations for the organizationтАЩs national annual awards which recognize special achievements in astronomy research, technology, education, and public outreach.. ...

A team of U.S. and German astrophysicists have made the first ever detection of X-rays coming from a comet. ... Following the initial detection, the team reported repeated X-ray emissions from the comet over the next 24 hours. ... One preliminary theory is that X-ray emission from the Sun was absorbed by a cloud of gaseous water molecules surrounding the nucleus of the comet, and then were re-emitted by the molecules in a process physicists call "fluorescence." ... Comets . ...

... A brief look at Sakurai?s Object . ... Sakurai?s Object (V4334 Sagittarii) was discovered on the 20 th of Febuary 1996 by a Japanese astronomer Yukio Sakurai. ... Initially astronomers thought it to be a nova (an explosion on the surface of a white dwarf). ... When it failed to show any hydrogen emissions from the star, the charateristic of a nova, they realised that this was a very interesting star. ... Sakurai?s object was in fact a white dwarf when it went through this last helium burst. ...