N159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
28.01.2017

Over 150 light-years across, this cosmic maelstrom of gas and dust is not too far away. It lies south of the Tarantula Nebula in our satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud a mere 180,000 light-years distant. Massive stars have formed within.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744
26.05.2017

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo appearing as a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight.

Io's Shadow
7.10.1996

Caught in the act earlier this summer by the Hubble Space Telescope, the volcanic moon Io (above and right of center) and its shadow (black dot) are seen here against Jupiter's clouds.

A Slice of the Universe with 2dF
14.06.2000

What can 100,000 galaxies tell you? Perhaps the structure and composition of the universe. Astronomers using the Two Degree Field (2dF) spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in Australia have now measured the redshifts of over 100,000 galaxies in a thin ribbon of the sky.

The Large Cloud of Magellan
18.09.1995

Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during their famous voyage around the world. As a result, two fuzzy cloud like objects, nestled among the southern constellations of Doradus and Tucana are now known as the Clouds of Magellan.

In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula
4.03.2003

The center of the Lagoon Nebula is busy with the awesome spectacle of star formation. Visible in the lower left, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. The tremendously bright nearby star, Hershel 36, lights the area.

A Black Hole in M87?
5.04.1997

The center of nearby giant galaxy M87 is a dense and violent place. In this 1994 photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope, a disk of hot gas was found to be orbiting at the center of this massive elliptical galaxy. The disk is evident at the lower left of the picture.

Unusual Spiral Galaxy M66
7.04.2004

Why isn't spiral galaxy M66 symmetric? Usually density waves of gas, dust, and newly formed stars circle a spiral galaxy's center and create a nearly symmetric galaxy. The differences between...

A Panorama from Mauna Kea
4.07.2005

Typically, views from Mauna Kea are up and dark. That's because the famous dormant volcano in Hawaii is arguably Earth's premier observing platform of the complex and ever changing night sky. However, this daytime view is across and bright. White snow and white clouds seem to blend together to make an alien landscape.

Hubble Resolves Expiration Date For Green Cheese Moon
1.04.2006

Using the new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to confirm that the Moon is made of green cheese. The telling clue was the resolution of a marked date after which the Moon may go bad.