The Clouds of Jupiter
20.09.1997

What makes the colors in Jupiter's clouds? With a mean temperature of 120 degrees Kelvin (-153 degrees Celsius) and a composition dominated by hydrogen (about 90%), and helium (about 10%) with a smattering...

Methane Dwarf
3.06.1999

While hunting through Sloan Sky Survey data in search of distant quasars, Princeton astronomers Xiaohui Fan and Michael Strauss came upon an undiscovered type of object very nearby - now dubbed a methane dwarf. Marked...

Reflections on NGC 6188
25.08.1999

NGC 6188 is an interstellar carnival of young blue stars, hot red gas, and cool dark dust. Located 4000 light years away in the disk of our Galaxy, NGC 6188 is home to the Ara OB1 association, a group of bright young stars whose nucleus forms the open cluster NGC 6193.

Sprites from Space
21.08.2015

An old Moon and the stars of Orion rose above the eastern horizon on August 10. The Moon's waning crescent was still bright enough to be overexposed in this snapshot taken from another large satellite of planet Earth, the International Space Station.

APOD: 2024 May 19 Б Jupiter Diving
19.05.2024

Take this simulated plunge and dive into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, the Solar System's ruling gas giant. The awesome animation is based on image data from JunoCam, and the microwave radiometer on board the Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft.

M77: Spiral Galaxy with an Active Center
17.03.2020

What's happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? The face-on galaxy lies a mere 47 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Sea Monster (Cetus). At that estimated distance, this gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across.

NGC 1818: Pick A Star
15.04.1998

This is NGC 1818, a youthful, glittering cluster of 20,000 stars residing in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 164,000 light-years away. Pick a star. Any star. Astronomers might pick the unassuming bluish-white one (circled) which appears to be a hot newly formed white dwarf star. What makes it so interesting?

The Near Infrared Sky
18.05.2000

Was this picture taken from outside our Galaxy? No, it is a composite taken from Earth orbit, well inside our Milky Way Galaxy. In light just a little too red for human eyes...

Dark Nebulas across Taurus
14.03.2016

Sometimes even the dark dust of interstellar space has a serene beauty. One such place occurs toward the constellation of Taurus. The filaments featured here can be found on the sky between the Pleiades star cluster and the California Nebula.

The Colorful Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi
5.07.2016

The many spectacular colors of the Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) clouds highlight the many processes that occur there. The blue regions shine primarily by reflected light. Blue light from the star Rho Ophiuchi and nearby stars reflects more efficiently off this portion of the nebula than red light.