Contemplating Mars
2.09.2003

Is that really another world? Thousands of people the world over lined up last week to see Mars through a telescope as the red planet and Earth passed unusually close together in their orbits around the Sun. Reviews of Mars were mixed, with some people disappointed that Mars still appeared somewhat blurry.

Aurora Oklahoma
12.11.2003

Nestled in the central US, the state of Oklahoma is noted for its gorgeous prairie skies and wide-open spaces, but not for frequent visitations of the northern lights. Still, following the intense solar activity...

SOFIA s Mirror
22.10.2004

The candy-dish appearance of this high-tech astronomical mirror is striking. Made of a special glass ceramic material called Zerodur, it actually measures 2.7 meters across. The transparent surface has not yet received a reflective...

Tentacles of the Tarantula Nebula
27.12.2004

The Tarantula Nebula is a giant emission nebula within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. Inside this cosmic arachnid lies a huge central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136 and partially visible on the upper right.

The Horsehead Nebula
15.12.2015

The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula in the center of the above photograph. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright red emission nebula.

Milky Way over the Pinnacles in Australia
16.02.2016

What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown.

NGC 1499: The California Nebula
5.11.2018

There's even a California in space. Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States.

The Annotated Galactic Center
26.09.2019

The center of our Milky Way galaxy can be found some 26,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius. Even on a dark night, you can't really see it though. Gaze in that direction, and your sight-line is quickly obscured by intervening interstellar dust.

Spiral Galaxies Spinning Super Fast
4.11.2019

Why are these galaxies spinning so fast? If you estimated each spiral's mass by how much light it emits, their fast rotations should break them apart. The leading hypothesis as to why these galaxies don't break apart is dark matter -- mass so dark we can't see it.

2MASS J17554042 6551277
18.03.2022

2MASS J17554042+6551277 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but that's the name, a coordinate-based catalog designation, of the star centered in this sharp field of view. Fans of the distant universe should get used to its spiky appearance though.