M16 Close Up
A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region adopts the colorful Hubble palette and includes cosmic sculptures ...
Atlas at Dawn
This single, 251-second long exposure follows the early flight of an Atlas V rocket on August 8, streaking eastward toward the dawn from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, planet Earth. The launch of the United Launch Alliance rocket was at 6:13am ...
Curiosity at Teal Ridge
Part of a 360 degree panorama, this view looks out from the Mars rover Curiosity's current location on the Red Planet dubbed Teal Ridge. The mosaicked scene was captured by the rover's Mastcam on Earth calendar date June 18, 2019. That ...
Jupiter Engulfed and the Milky Way
This is a good month to see Jupiter. To find our Solar System's largest planet in your sky, look toward the southeast just after sunset -- Jupiter should be the brightest object in that part of the sky. If you have a binoculars or a small ...
The Local Void in the Nearby Universe
What does our region of the Universe look like? Since galaxies are so spread out over the sky, and since our Milky Way Galaxy blocks part of the distant sky, it has been hard to tell. A new map has been made, however, using large-scale galaxy ...
A Total Solar Eclipse Reflected
If you saw a total solar eclipse, would you do a double-take? One astrophotographer did just that -- but it took a lake and a bit of planning. Realizing that the eclipse would be low on the horizon, he looked for a suitable place along the thin ...
Rumors of a Dark Universe
Twenty-one years ago results were first presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space itself. In the language of cosmologists, a large cosmological constant -- dark energy -- was ...
Mimas in Saturnlight
Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Mimas lies in near darkness alongside a dramatic sunlit crescent. The mosaic was captured near the Cassini spacecraft's final close approach on January 30, 2017. Cassini's camera was ...
Chamaeleon II Dark Cloud
A small constellation hiding near the south celestial pole, The Chamaeleon boasts no bright stars. Stars are forming within its constellation boundaries though, in a complex of dark, dusty molecular clouds. Some 500 light-years distant, the ...
Elements in the Aftermath
Massive stars spend their brief lives furiously burning nuclear fuel. Through fusion at extreme temperatures and densities surrounding the stellar core, nuclei of light elements ike Hydrogen and Helium are combined to heavier elements like ...
