A Dangerous Summer on HD 80606b
4.02.2009

On the distant planet HD 80606b, summers might be dangerous. Hypothetic life forms floating in HD 080606b's atmosphere or lurking on one of its (presently hypothetical) moons might fear the 1,500 Kelvin summer heat, which is hot enough not only to melt lead but also nickel.

Supernova Remnant Puppis A
12.09.2014

Driven by the explosion of a massive star, supernova remnant Puppis A is blasting into the surrounding interstellar medium about 7,000 light-years away. At that distance, this remarkable false-color exploration of its complex expansion is about 180 light-years wide.

The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble
9.05.2018

How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The unusual...

Water Vapor Discovered on Distant Exoplanet
17.09.2019

Where else might life exist? One of humanity's great outstanding questions, locating planets where extrasolar life might survive took a step forward recently with the discovery of a significant amount of water vapor in the atmosphere of distant exoplanet K2-18b.

Supernova in NGC 2525
23.10.2020

Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 2525 lies 70 million light-years from the Milky Way. It shines in Earth's night sky within the boundaries of the southern constellation Puppis. About 60,000 light-years...

The Andromeda Galaxy in Ultraviolet
18.07.2021

What does the Andromeda galaxy look like in ultraviolet light? Young blue stars circling the galactic center dominate. A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go.

APOD: 2024 May 8 Б Visualization: A Black Hole Accretion Disk
8.05.2024

What would it look like to circle a black hole? If the black hole was surrounded by a swirling disk of glowing and accreting gas, then the great gravity of the black hole would deflect light emitted by the disk to make it look very unusual. The featured animated video gives a visualization.

Massive Stars of 30 Doradus
22.06.2003

In the center of star-forming region 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars and part of the surrounding nebula are captured here in this gorgeous visible-light Hubble Space Telescope image.

I Zwicky 18: Young Galaxy
3.12.2004

The Milky Way is an ordinary 12 billion year old spiral galaxy, and even our middle-aged Sun is pushing 4.5 billion years. But all the stars in dwarf galaxy I Zwicky 18 are much younger.

Possible Pluto Moons
3.11.2005

In 1930, tiny, icy world Pluto was discovered orbiting in the distant solar system. In 1978, its relatively large companion Charon was detected by ground-based observations. This year, the Hubble Space Telescope may well have detected two further members of the Pluto system.