A Full Sky Multi Colored Auroral Corona
8.11.2004

On some nights the sky is the most interesting show in town. This fisheye picture captures a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred two days ago over l'Observatoire de la Decouverte in Val Belair near Quebec, Canada.

Messier 96
15.06.2007

Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so, about the size of our own Milky Way.

Red Sprite Lightning with Aurora
22.05.2013

What's that in the sky? It is a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 25 years ago: a red sprite. Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning...

Spiral Galaxy M96 from Hubble
20.09.2015

Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting...

NGC 1309: Spiral Galaxy and Friends
13.07.2016

A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy.

Deepscape at Yacoraite
7.05.2021

In this evocative night scene a dusty central Milky Way rises over the ancient Andean archaeological site of Yacoraite in northwestern Argentina. The denizens of planet Earth reaching skyward are the large Argentine saguaro cactus currently native to the arid region.

Comet LINEAR: Fade To Black
13.09.2000

Only last month the stage was set for Comet LINEAR (C/1999S4 LINEAR) to become the first "naked-eye" comet of Y2K. It didn't fill that role, of course, but it did turn in a very dramatic performance.

Seyfert's Sextet
23.01.2003

Known as Seyfert's Sextet, this intriguing group of galaxies lies in the head portion of the split constellation Serpens. The sextet actually contains only four interacting galaxies, though. Near the center of this...

CMBR Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
8.03.2008

Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

Weak Lensing Distorts the Universe
29.03.2008

Is the distant universe really what it appears to be? Astronomers hope not. Intervening dark matter, which is normally invisible, might show its presence by distorting images originating in the distant universe, much the way an old window distorts images originating on the other side.