Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur
4.06.2013

Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud.

NGC 602 and Beyond
16.05.2021

The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602.

The Tarantula Zone
12.06.2014

The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid lies toward the upper left in this deep and colorful telescopic view made through broad-band and narrow-band filters.

Neptune's Great Dark Spot: Gone But Not Forgotten
1.12.2001

When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by distant Neptune in August of 1989, astronomers were shocked. Since Neptune receives only 3 percent the sunlight Jupiter does, they expected to find a dormant, dark, frigid planet. Instead, the Voyager images revealed evidence of a dynamic and turbulent world.

Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant
24.03.2005

It's easy to get lost following the intricate filaments in this detailed image of faint supernova remnant Simeis 147. Seen towards the constellation Taurus it covers nearly 3 degrees (6 full moons) on the sky corresponding to a width of 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years.

X Ray Portrait of Trumpler 14
2.09.2005

A wonder of planet Earth's southern sky, star cluster Trumpler 14 lies about nine thousand light-years away in the Carina complex -- a rich star forming region at the edge of a giant molecular cloud.

APOD: 2023 September 19 Б HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star
19.09.2023

Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be reduced by expelling jets.

SN 1006: A Supernova Ribbon from Hubble
15.09.2008

What created this unusual space ribbon? Most assuredly, one of the most violent explosions ever witnessed by ancient humans. Back in the year 1006 AD, light reached Earth from a stellar explosion...

Supernova Remnant CTA 1
23.08.2024

There is a quiet pulsar at the heart of CTA 1. The supernova remnant was discovered as a source of emission at radio wavelengths by astronomers in 1960 and since identified as the result of the death explosion of a massive star.

APOD: 2025 April 20 Б The Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared
20.04.2025

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, multi-wavelength images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust.