T Tauri: A Star is Formed
3.08.2009

What does a star look like when it is forming? The prototypical example is the variable star T Tauri, visible as the bright orange star near the image center. The orange star centered in this remarkable telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars.

Tonight: A Supermoon Lunar Eclipse
27.09.2015

Tonight a bright full Moon will fade to red. Tonight's moon will be particularly bright because it is reaching its fully lit phase when it is relatively close to the Earth in its elliptical orbit.

X Ray Stars in M15
20.09.2001

Side by side, two x-ray stars greeted astronomers in this false-color Chandra Observatory x-ray image of a region near the core of globular star cluster M15. The greeting was a pleasant surprise, as all previous x-ray images of the cluster showed only one such source where Chandra's sharper x-ray vision now reveals two.

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star
29.12.2012

Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta...

X-Rays from the Galactic Plane
14.08.2001

In February 2000, the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory spent 27 hours staring into the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Its target was a spot in the small constellation Scutum, within the Milky Way's zone of avoidance where galactic gas and dust clouds block visible light, making a poor window for optical telescopes.

Cyg X-1: Can Black Holes Form in the Dark?
2.04.2005

The formation of a black hole from the collapsing core of a massive star is thought to be heralded by a spectacular supernova explosion. Such an extremely energetic collapse is also a leading explanation for the mysterious cosmic gamma-ray bursts.

21st Century M101
13.07.2012

One of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy.

W5: Pillars of Star Formation
15.12.2014

How do stars form? Images of the star forming region W5 like those in the infrared by NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite provide clear clues with indications that massive stars near the center of empty cavities are older than stars near the edges.

APOD: 2025 August 22 Б A Tale of Two Nebulae
22.08.2025

This colorful telescopic view towards the musical northern constellation Lyra reveals the faint outer halos and brighter central ring-shaped region of M57, popularly known as the Ring Nebula. To modern astronomers M57 is a well-known planetary nebula.

Around The Arches Cluster
14.06.2001

The most compact cluster of stars known in our galaxy, the Arches cluster, boasts 100 or so massive, young stars contained within a diameter of one light-year. Seen toward the constellation Sagittarius, the Arches...