Fornax Cluster in Motion
24.09.2004

Reminiscent of popular images of the lovely Pleiades star cluster that lies within our own Milky Way Galaxy, this false-color x-ray view actually explores the center of a much more extended cosmic family -- the Fornax cluster of galaxies some 65 million light-years away.

The Southern Sky in Warm Hydrogen
29.01.2002

A robotic telescope with red sunglasses in Chile has been photographing the entire southern sky for years. The result, shown above, is the most complete sky map of the most common visible light emitted from the most abundant element in our Galaxy: hydrogen. A very specific red color emitted by warm ionized hydrogen was observed.

The Northern Milky Way
25.08.2003

Many of the stars in our home Milky Way Galaxy appear together as a dim band on the sky that passes nearly over the Earth's north and south poles. Pictured above is the part of our Galaxy that passes closest over the north pole.

Airglow Borealis
27.10.2018

The best known asterism in northern skies hangs over the Canadian Rockies in this mountain and night skyscape taken last week from Banff National Park. But most remarkable is the amazing greenish airglow. With...

X Rays from M83
6.02.2003

Bright and beautiful spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years from Earth, toward the headstrong constellation Hydra. Sweeping spiral arms, prominent in visible light images, lend this galaxy its popular moniker -- the Southern Pinwheel.

GLAST Gamma Ray Sky Simulation
22.07.2000

What shines in the gamma-ray sky? This simulated image models the intensities of gamma rays with over 40 million times the energy of visible light, and represents how the sky might appear to the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) after its first year in orbit.

GLAST Gamma Ray Sky Simulation
12.11.1998

This simulated image models the intensities of gamma rays with over 40 million times the energy of visible light, and represents how the sky might appear to the proposed Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) after its first year in orbit.

A Milky Way Band
24.02.1999

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky. The above panorama of a southern band of the Milky Way's disk was taken from Australia.

A Milky Way Band
5.06.2005

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.

A Milky Way Band
30.09.2007

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.