Milky Way with Airglow Australis

2017-02-03 Yuri Beletsky

Captured last April after sunset on a Chilean winter's night an exceptionally intense airglow flooded this scene. The panoramic skyscape is also filled with stars, clusters, and nebulae along the southern Milky Way including the Large and Small ...

NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide

2017-02-02 Steve Mazlin

An example of violence on a cosmic scale, enormous elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light-years away toward Fornax, the southern constellation of the Furnace. Investigating the startling sight, astronomers suspect the giant galaxy ...

Four Planets Orbiting Star HR 8799

2017-02-01

Does life exist outside our Solar System? To help find out, NASA has created the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) to better locate and study distant star systems that hold hope of harboring living inhabitants. A new observational result ...

Where to See the American Eclipse

2017-01-31

Are you planning to see the American Eclipse on August 21? A few hours after sunrise, a rare total eclipse of the Sun will be visible along a narrow path across the USA. Those only near the path will see a partial eclipse. Although some ...

The Cat's Eye Nebula from Hubble

2017-01-30

To some, it may look like a cat's eye. The alluring Cat's Eye nebula, however, lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. A classic planetary nebula, the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a final, brief yet glorious ...

Red Aurora Over Australia

2017-01-29 Terrastro

Why would the sky glow red? Aurora. A solar storm in 2012, emanating mostly from active sunspot region 1402, showered particles on the Earth that excited oxygen atoms high in the Earth's atmosphere. As the excited element's electrons fell back ...

N159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

2017-01-28

Over 150 light-years across, this cosmic maelstrom of gas and dust is not too far away. It lies south of the Tarantula Nebula in our satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud a mere 180,000 light-years distant. Massive stars have formed within. ...

Venus Through Water Drops

2017-01-27 John Bell

Now the brilliant "star" in planet Earth's evening skies, Venus is captured in this creative astrophotograph. Taken with a close-focusing lens on January 18 from Milton Keynes, UK, it shows multiple images of the sky above the western horizon ...

GOES-16: Moon over Planet Earth

2017-01-26

Launched last November 19 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the satellite now known as GOES-16 can now observe planet Earth from a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. Its Advanced Baseline Imager captured this contrasting ...

Cassini's Grand Finale Tour at Saturn

2017-01-25

Cassini is being prepared to dive into Saturn. The robotic spacecraft that has been orbiting and exploring Saturn for over a decade will end its mission in September with a spectacular atmospheric plunge. Pictured here is a diagram of Cassini's ...