Kona Galaxy Garden
18.01.2011

How does your galaxy grow? Quite contrary to a typical galaxy, this one needs water to flourish. Pictured above as it appears at the Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary in Kona, Hawaii, USA, a meticulously planned garden spanning about 30 meters provides a relatively accurate map of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Meteor Milky Way
26.11.1998

The bold, bright star patterns of Orion (right) are a familiar sight to even casual skygazers. But this gorgeous color photo also features a subtler spectacle - the faint stars of the Milky Way.

Sisters of the Dusty Sky
18.11.2010

Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud some 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae. In the dusty sky toward the constellation Taurus and the Orion Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy, this remarkable image shows the famous star cluster at the upper left.

APOD: 2023 January 25 Б LDN 1622: The Boogeyman Nebula
25.01.2023

To some, the dark shape looks like a mythical boogeyman. Scientifically, Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in long telescopic exposures of the region.

Proplyds: Infant Solar Systems?
17.10.1996

Are planets common in our galaxy? Strong evidence that the answer is "yes" was provided in this 1994 image made by the Hubble Space Telescope . A close-up of the Orion Nebulae, it reveals what seem to be disks of dust and gas surrounding newly formed stars.

Nebulae in the Northern Cross
19.11.2010

Explore a beautiful and complex region of nebulae strewn along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in this widefield skyscape. The image emphasizes cosmic gas clouds in a 25 by 25 degree view centered on the Northern Cross, the famous asterism in the constellation Cygnus.