Comet and Orion
2.10.2009

These colorful panels both feature a familiar northern hemisphere astronomical sight: the stellar nursery known as the Great Orion Nebula. They also offer an intriguing and unfamiliar detail of the nebula rich skyscape -- a passing comet.

NGC 6188 and NGC 6164
28.07.2011

Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing hydrogen gas in NGC 6188. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud, unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away.

Two Tails of Comet Lulin
25.02.2009

Go outside tonight and see Comet Lulin. From a dark location, you should need only a good star map and admirable perseverance -- although wide-field binoculars might help. Yesterday, Comet Lulin passed its closest to Earth, so that the comet will remain near its brightest over the next few days.

The Perseid Meteor Shower
9.08.1996

From a radiant point in the constellation of Perseus, Comet Swift-Tuttle presents -- The Perseid Meteor Shower -- coming to your night sky this weekend! A bookish E. C. Herrick of New Haven, Connecticut correctly suspected in 1837 that this meteor shower was an annual event.

Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096
2.12.2022

Bright at infrared wavelengths, this merging galaxy pair is some 500 million light-years away toward the constellation Delphinus. The cosmic mashup is seen against a background of even more distant galaxies, and occasional spiky foreground stars. But the galaxy merger itself spans about 100,000 light-years in this deep James Webb Space Telescope image.

Worlds of a Distant Sun: 47 Ursae Majoris b
5.10.1997

In the last few years, observational astronomy has given humanity evidence of the existence of worlds beyond the solar system. Solar-type stars are now inferred to harbor planets of approximately Jupiter mass - some residing in temperature zones which could conceivably support liquid water and therefore life!

M17: Omega Nebula Star Factory
19.09.2000

In the depths of the dark clouds of dust and molecular gas known as M17, stars continue to form. Visible in the above recently released representative-color photograph of M17 by the New Technology Telescope are clouds so dark that they appear almost empty of near infrared light.

Star Trails and the Equinox Sunrise
21.03.2019

Stars trail and the Sun rises in this night and day composite panorama made on March 19. The view looks toward the eastern horizon from La Nava de Santiago, Spain. To create...

The Extraordinary Spiral in LL Pegasi
8.07.2018

What created the strange spiral structure on the upper left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected.

The Extraordinary Spiral in LL Pegasi
11.12.2016

What created the strange spiral structure on the left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected.