The Virgo Cluster: Hot Plasma and Dark Matter
19.04.1996

This ROSAT image of the Virgo cluster of galaxies reveals a hot X-ray emitting plasma or gas with a temperature of 10-100 million degrees pervading the cluster. False colors have been used to represent the intensity of X-ray emission.

Pleiades, Planets, And Hot Plasma
24.05.2000

Bright stars of the Pleiades, four planets, and erupting solar plasma are all captured in this spectacular image from the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In the foreground of the 15 degree wide field of view, a bubble of hot plasma, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)

Plasma Jets from Radio Galaxy Hercules A
5.12.2012

Why does this galaxy emit such spectacular jets? No one is sure, but it is likely related to an active supermassive black hole at its center. The galaxy at the image center, Hercules A, appears to be a relatively normal elliptical galaxy in visible light.

Aurora over Maine
17.09.2014

It has been a good week for auroras. Earlier this month active sunspot region 2158 rotated into view and unleashed a series of flares and plasma ejections into the Solar System during its journey across the Sun's disk.

A Prominence on the Sun
19.09.2015

This eerie landscape of incandescent plasma suspended in looping and twisted magnetic fields stretched toward the Sun's eastern horizon on September 16. Captured through a backyard telescope and narrowband filter in light from ionized hydrogen, the scene reveals a gigantic prominence lofted above the solar limb.

Escape From The Sun
20.11.1997

Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma arches are seen as prominences above the solar limb. On September 14, this...

A Huge Solar Filament Erupts
31.07.2016

Filaments sometimes explode off the Sun. Featured, a huge filament had been seen hovering over the Sun's surface for over a week before it erupted late in 2010. The image sequence was taken by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in one color of ultraviolet light.

Z Machine Sets Unexpected Earth Temperature Record
13.03.2006

Why is this plasma so hot? Physicists aren't sure. What is known for sure is that the Z Machine running at Sandia National Laboratories created a plasma that was unexpectedly hot. The plasma...

Dark Filament of the Sun
22.05.2010

Suspended by magnetic fields above a solar active region this dark filament stretches over 40 earth-diameters. The ominous structure appears to be frozen in time near the Sun's edge, but solar filaments are unstable and often erupt.

APOD: 2023 April 3 Б The Galactic Center Radio Arc
3.04.2023

What causes this unusual curving structure near the center of our Galaxy? The long parallel rays slanting across the top of the featured radio image are known collectively as the Galactic Center Radio Arc and point out from the Galactic plane.