Star Factory Messier 17
29.08.2024

A nearby star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view would span about 150 light-years.

Henize 70: A SuperBubble In The LMC
13.06.1998

Stars with tens of times the mass of the Sun profoundly affect their galactic environment. Churning and mixing the interstellar gas and dust clouds they leave their mark in the compositions and locations of future generations of stars and star systems.

The N44 Complex
27.03.2008

A truly giant complex of emission nebulae, N44 is about 1,000 light-years across. It shines in southern skies as a denizen of our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, 170,000 light-years away.

Dust of the Orion Nebula
29.12.2015

What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust.

A Cosmic Rose: The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
12.04.2019

The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers, but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this cosmic rose are actually a stellar nursery.

The Mysterious Rings of Supernova 1987A
6.02.2000

What's causing those odd rings in supernova 1987A? In 1987, the brightest supernova in recent history occurred in the Large Magellanic Clouds. At the center of the picture is an object central to the remains of the violent stellar explosion.

The Frothy Milky Way
9.10.1999

Astronomers have discovered that looking at dust along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy is a bit like looking into a frothy glass of beer. The dust between stars in our galaxy appears...

Dust Clouds of the Pacman Nebula
10.08.2022

Stars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular clouds from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds.

NGC 7380: The Wizard Nebula
14.11.2022

What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, featured here, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380.

Hurricane Fran's Approach
20.09.1996

Two weeks ago Hurricane Fran, pictured above, struck the east coast of the United States. Hurricanes are huge swirling storms with cloud systems typically larger than a state. Tropical cyclones, called Hurricanes in Earth's Western Hemisphere and Typhoons in the Eastern Hemisphere, get their immense energy from warm evaporated ocean water.