Plane Crossing a Crescent Moon
12.02.2019

No, this is not a good way to get to the Moon. What is pictured is a chance superposition of an airplane and the Moon. The contrail would normally appear white, but the large volume of air toward the setting Sun preferentially knocks away blue light, giving the reflected trail a bright red hue.

Total Totality
12.04.2024

Baily's beads often appear at the boundaries of the total phase of an eclipse of the Sun. Pearls of sunlight still beaming through gaps in the rugged terrain along the lunar limb silhouette, their appearance is recorded in this dramatic timelapse composite.

3C175: Quasar Cannon
5.09.2001

3C175 is not only a quasar, it is a galaxy-fueled particle cannon. Visible as the central dot is quasar 3C175, the active center of a galaxy so distant that the light we see from it was emitted when the Earth was just forming.

M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs
25.11.2001

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars.

M16: Stars from Eagle's Eggs
24.09.2000

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that

Proplyds: Infant Solar Systems
11.09.1995

The fuzzy blobs seen above may be some of the first ever images of entire solar systems forming right before our eyes. This close up of the Orion Nebulae taken by the Hubble Space...

A Close-Up of the Lagoon Nebula
20.08.1996

Ribbons of red-glowing gas and dark dust surround massive young stars in this close-up of the Lagoon Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Lagoon Nebula is relatively close and bright - it appears larger than the Full Moon and is visible even without a telescope.

Moon Occults Saturn
24.09.1997

Many stargazers in the U. S. were able to watch a lovely lunar occultation early last Thursday morning as a bright Moon passed in front of Saturn. Using a 1.2 meter reflector, astronomer Kris Stanek had an excellent view of this dream-like event from the Whipple Observatory atop Arizona's Mount Hopkins.

The Search for Life on Mars
21.07.1995

Although images of Mars taken from space revealed the planet to have a barren and cratered surface, scientists did not give up the search for martian life. In 1976 NASA's Viking project succeeded in landing two robot probes on the surface of Mars.

A Daytime Fireball Over South Wales
1.10.2003

Jon Burnett, a teenager from South Wales, UK, was photographing some friends skateboarding last week when the sky did something very strange. High in the distance, a sofa-sized rock came hurtling into the nearby atmosphere of planet Earth and disintegrated.