Burns Cliff Anaglyph

2006-08-04

Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze across Burns Cliff along the inner wall of Endurance crater on Mars! The view from the perspective of Mars rover Opportunity is a color anaglyph - two different images are presented to the left and right ...

M27: Not A Comet

2006-08-03 RicksAstro Astrophotography

While searching the skies above 18th century France for comets, astronomer Charles Messier diligently recorded this object as number 27 on his list of things which are definitely not comets. So what is it? Well, 20th century astronomers would ...

Methane Rain Possible on Titan

2006-08-02 Mark Garlick

Might it rain cold methane on Saturn's Titan? Recent analyses of measurements taken by the Huygen's probe that landed on Titan in 2005 January indicate that the atmosphere is actually saturated with methane at a height of about 8 kilometers. ...

The Milky Way over Utah

2006-08-01 Wally Pacholka

If sometimes it appears that the entire Milky Way Galaxy is raining down on your head, do not despair. It happens twice a day. As the Sun rises in the East, wonders of the night sky become less bright than the sunlight scattered by our own ...

Possible Methane Lakes on Titan

2006-07-31

Have methane lakes been discovered on Saturn's Titan? That exciting possibility was uncovered from analyses of radar images returned last week by the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. The above image is a radar reflection from ...

Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of...

2006-07-30

The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. By ...

The Swarm

2006-07-29

What do you call a group of black holes ... a flock, a brace, a swarm? Monitoring a region around the center of our Galaxy, astronomers have indeed found evidence for a surprisingly large number of variable x-ray sources - likely black holes or ...

Four Supernova Remnants

2006-07-28

These four panels show x-ray images of expanding cosmic debris clouds, tens of light-years across, in nearby galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. The supernova remnants (SNRs) are the results of two types of stellar explosions and are arranged in ...

NGC 7331 and Beyond

2006-07-27 R. Jay GaBany

Spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies ...

Explosions from White Dwarf Star RS Oph

2006-07-26 David A. Hardy

Spectacular explosions keep occurring in the binary star system named RS Ophiuchi. Every 20 years or so, the red giant star dumps enough hydrogen gas onto its companion white dwarf star to set off a brilliant thermonuclear explosion on the white ...