APOD: 2024 May 28 Б Solar X Flare as Famous Active Region Returns
27.05.2024

It's back. The famous active region on the Sun that created auroras visible around the Earth earlier this month has survived its rotation around the far side of the Sun -- and returned. Yesterday...

Star Forming Region Hubble X
15.02.2001

In nearby galaxy NGC 6822, this glowing emission nebula complex surrounds bright, massive, newborn stars. A mere 4 million years young, these stars condensed from the galaxy's interstellar gas and dust clouds.

Flaming Star Nebula
30.11.2016

A runaway star lights the Flaming Star Nebula in this cosmic scene. Otherwise known as IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula's billowing interstellar clouds of gas and dust lie about 1,500 light-years away toward the constellation of Auriga.

The Pelican Nebula in Red and Blue
28.02.2021

The Pelican Nebula is changing. The entire nebula, officially designated IC 5070, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, is particularly interesting because it is an unusually active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds.

M57: The Ring Nebula
16.04.2018

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping...

A Charioteer s Comet
28.02.2019

Still racing across planet Earth's night skies, Comet Iwamoto (C/2018 Y1) shares this pretty telescopic field of view with stars and nebulae of northern constellation Auriga, the Charioteer. Captured on February 27, Iwamoto's greenish coma and faint tail appear between a complex of reddish emission nebulae and open star cluster M36 (bottom right).

NGC 6188 and NGC 6164
28.07.2011

Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing hydrogen gas in NGC 6188. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud, unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away.

The Hydrogen Clouds of M33
26.12.2013

Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum Galaxy and lies about 3 million light-years distant.

Rainbow Airglow over the Azores
17.04.2021

Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however -- like an approaching storm -- may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth's atmosphere.

M57: The Ring Nebula from Hubble
16.08.2021

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial circle. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping...