Ring of Fire Revisited
rly on Saturday, May 31 (UT) the new Moon will once again slide across the Sun's fiery disk, and once again an annular solar eclipse will be the result -- since the Moon's apparent diameter will be a little too small to completely cover the Sun. ...
Frizion Illume
Scientific images of cosmic dust clouds or even frozen water can be esthetic too. In fact, this picture of thin layers of forming ice crystals uses a scientific understanding of light's wave properties solely for artistic purposes. Titled ...
SNR 0103-72.6: Oxygen Supply
A supernova explosion, a massive star's inevitable and spectacular demise, blasts back into space debris enriched in the heavy elements forged in its stellar core. Incorporated into future stars and planets, these are the elements ultimately ...
A Mercury Transit Sequence
rlier this month, the planet Mercury crossed the face of the Sun, as seen from Earth. Because the plane of Mercury's orbit is not exactly coincident with the plane of Earth's orbit, Mercury usually appears to pass over or under the Sun. The ...
The Earth and Moon from Mars
What does Earth look like from Mars? The first image of Earth from the red planet was captured earlier this month by the camera onboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. Features visible on Earth include the Pacific ...
Spiral Galaxy NGC 253 Almost Sideways
NGC 253 is a normal spiral galaxy seen here almost sideways. It is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. NGC 253, pictured above, appears visually as one of the brightest ...
M74: The Perfect Spiral
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 30 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, NGC 628 or M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view to ...
Eclipsed Moon and Stars
Half-shadowed by the Earth, the Moon takes on a remarkable appearance against a field of stars in this intriguing telephoto picture recorded during a partial phase of last week's lunar eclipse. The picture is not a composite, but it has been ...
Eclipsed Moon Montage
After watching this month's lunar eclipse, amateur astronomer Sebastien Gauthier carefully composed this montage of telescopic images of the Moon sliding through planet Earth's shadow. While the deepest part of the total eclipse corresponds to ...
Copper Moon, Golden Gate
When the Moon rose over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on May 15, both bridge and Moon were in already in Earth's shadow. Of course, the bridge is in the Earth's shadow nightly, while the Moon only has that opportunity about twice a year, ...
