Galaxies in Pegasus

2016-12-03 Péter Feltóti

This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars of the Milky Way at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC 7331. A mere 50 million light-years away, the ...

A Triple Star is Born

2016-12-02

A triple star system is forming, enshrouded within this dusty natal disk some 750 light-years away in the Perseus molecular cloud. Imaged at millimeter wavelengths by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, the extreme ...

Flaming Star Nebula

2016-12-01 Adam Block

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. AE ...

Milky Way over Shipwreck

2016-11-30 Sergio Montúfar

What happened to this ship? It was carried aground by a giant storm that struck the coast of Argentina in 2002. The pictured abandoned boat, dubbed Naufragio del Chubasco, wrecked near the nearly abandoned town of Cabo Raso (population: 1). The ...

W5: The Soul of Star Formation

2016-11-29

Where do stars form? Many times, stars form in energetic regions where gas and dark dust are pushed around in chaotic mayhem. Pictured, bright massive stars near the center of W5, the Soul Nebula, are exploding and emitting ionizing light and ...

Arp 240: A Bridge between Spiral...

2016-11-28

Why is there a bridge between these two spiral galaxies? Made of gas and stars, the bridge provides strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. Known ...

Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in...

2016-11-27

Could you survive a jump off the tallest cliff in the Solar System? Quite possibly. Verona Rupes on Uranus' moon Miranda is estimated to be 20 kilometers deep -- ten times the depth of the Earth's Grand Canyon. Given Miranda's low gravity, it ...

East to West, Light and Shadow

2016-11-26 Babak Tafreshi

On this November morning an old crescent Moon and morning star rise just before the Sun in a wide panoramic skyscape from Kenya's Amboseli National Park. Still below the limbs of an acacia tree and the eastern horizon, the Sun's position is easy ...

Apollo 17 VIP Site Anaglyph

2016-11-25

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo scene from Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon! The color anaglyph features a detailed 3D view of Apollo 17's Lunar Rover in the foreground -- behind it lies the Lunar Module and distant lunar ...

Ring Scan

2016-11-24

Scroll right and you can cruise along the icy rings of Saturn. This high resolution scan is a mosaic of images presented in natural color. The images were recorded in May 2007 over about 2.5 hours as the Cassini spacecraft passed above the unlit ...