The Dark Seahorse in Cepheus
20.04.2023

Spanning light-years, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant.

Black Holes and Galactic Centers
14.01.1997

Do all galaxies have black holes at their centers? Although not even a single galaxy has yet been proven to have a central black hole, the list of candidates has increased yet again. Recent...

Shuttle Engine Blast
8.03.1998

The Space Shuttle Discovery's orbital maneuvering system (OMS) engine firing produced this dramatic flare as it cruised "upside down" in low Earth orbit. Discovery was named for a ship commanded by Captain James Cook RN, the 18th Century English astronomer and navigator.

The Tulip in the Swan
21.09.2019

Framing a bright emission region, this telescopic view looks out across a pretty field of stars along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan. Popularly called...

The Galaxy and the Quasar
7.10.2002

Is the galaxy in the center connected to the quasar on the upper right? Disagreements about systems like this have raged for decades and have been used to challenge the foundations of modern cosmology.

NGC 1365: A Nearby Barred Spiral Galaxy
24.06.1999

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a bar, but perhaps not so prominent as the one in NGC 1365, shown above. The persistence and motion of the bar imply relatively massive spiral arms.

Edge on NGC 3628
20.06.2013

Sharp telescopic views of magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy.

The Eye of an Hourglass Nebula
9.02.1996

What's happening in the eye-like center of this planetary nebula? The geometry revealed in this Hubble Space Telescope view of the central part of an "etched hourglass nebula" known as MyCn 18 presents a puzzle. First, the axis of this central region does not line up well with the outer hourglass structure.

A Milky Way Band
5.06.2005

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.

A Milky Way Band
30.09.2007

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.