Astronomisches Bild des Tages

2010-01-06

Betelgeuse really is a big star. If placed at the center of our Solar System it would extend to the orbit of Jupiter. But like all stars except the Sun, Betelgeuse is so distant it usually appears as a single point of light, even in large ...

2010-01-04 Halley Multicolor Camera Team

What does a comet nucleus look like? Formed from the primordial stuff of the Solar System, comet nuclei were thought to resemble very dirty icebergs. But ground-based telescopes revealed only the surrounding cloud of gas and dust of active comets ...

2010-01-03 Umar Mohideen

This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is ...

2010-01-02 Jean Paul Roux

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 ended with a Blue Moon and a partial lunar eclipse, as the second Full Moon of December grazed the Earth's shadow on December 31st. The New Year's Eve Blue Moon eclipse was visible throughout Europe, Asia, ...

2010-01-01 Stefano De Rosa

This bright Full Moon was captured on December 2nd, shining above a church overlooking the River Po, in Turin, Italy. It was the first Full Moon in December. Shining on celebrations of New Year's Eve, last night's Full Moon was the second Full ...

2009-12-29 Rogelio Bernal Andreo

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula on the lower left is associated with the bright star Rigel, to its right, in ...

2009-12-28

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently released ...

2009-12-27

Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known. In fact, the features seen in the Cat's ...

2009-12-25 Tony Hallas

The graceful arc of the Milky Way begins and ends at two mountain peaks in this solemn night sky panorama. The view was created from a 24 frame mosaic, with exposures tracking Earth and sky separately. In the final composition, northern ...

2009-12-24 Noel Carboni

Gamma Cassiopeiae shines high in northern autumn evening skies. The brightest spiky star in this rich and colorful Milky Way starfield, bluish Gamma Cas marks the central peak in the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. A hot, variable, and rapidly ...