Planets Over Easter Island
It isn't every day that planets line up behind a stone giant. For one thing, it helps to have a good planet line-up, such as occurred in the sky just last month. For another, it helps to be on Easter Island, where over 800 large stone statues ...
Working in Space
High above planet Earth, a human helps an ailing machine. The machine, in this potentially touching story, is the Hubble Space Telescope, which is not in the picture. The human is Astronaut Steven L. Smith, and he is seen above retrieving a ...
X-Rays From Tycho's Supernova Remnant
In 1572, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe recorded the sudden appearance of a bright new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. The new star faded from view over a period of months and is believed to have been a supernova, one of the last stellar ...
Phases of Venus
Venus is currently falling out of the western evening sky. Second planet from the Sun and third brightest celestial object after the Sun and Moon, Venus has been appreciated by casual sky gazers as a brilliant beacon above the horizon after ...
Sharpless 140
Three young, massive stars will eventually emerge from this natal cloud of dust and gas, but their presence is already revealed in this false-color image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The picture offers a penetrating infrared view of an ...
Brain Crater on Mars
What caused this unusual looking crater floor on Mars? Appearing at first glance to resemble the human brain, the natural phenomena that created the unusual texture on the floor of this Martian impact crater are currently under investigation. ...
Comet NEAT (Q4) Over Indian Cove
Comet NEAT (Q4) was quite photogenic earlier this month. Although the head and part of the tails of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) were visible to the unaided eye, the best views of the colorful tail were revealed only later by cameras able to expose ...
NGC 3372: The Great Nebula in Carina
In one of the brightest parts of the Milky Way lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the Great Nebula in Carina, is home to massive stars and changing nebula. Eta Carina, the most energetic star in the nebula ...
Venus: Earth's Cloudy Twin
This picture by the Galileo spacecraft shows just how cloudy Venus is. Venus is very similar to Earth in size and mass - and so is sometimes referred to as Earth's sister planet - but Venus has a quite different climate. Venus' thick clouds and ...
Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tidal Tail
In this stunning vista recorded with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years ...
