WIRO at Jupiter
Gazing out over the mountaintops from the Wyoming InfraRed Observatory (WIRO), astronomers recently recorded this bizarre looking image of the solar system's ruling planet, gas giant Jupiter. The false-color picture is a composite of images taken ...
Lunar Farside from Apollo 11
The far side of the Moon is rough and filled with craters. By comparison, the near side of the Moon, the side we always see, is relatively smooth. Since the Moon is rotation locked to always point the same side toward Earth, humanity has only ...
Iridescent Clouds
Why would clouds appear to be different colors? A relatively rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These clouds are formed of small water droplets of nearly ...
M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy
Why do many galaxies appear as spirals? A striking example is M101, shown above, whose relatively close distance of about 22 million light years allow it to be studied in some detail. Recent evidence indicates that a close gravitational ...
Solar Sail
Nearly 400 years ago astronomer Johannes Kepler observed comet tails blown by a solar breeze and suggested that vessels might likewise navigate through space using appropriately fashioned sails. It is now widely recognized that sunlight does ...
The Star Trails of Kilimanjaro
The night had no moon, but the stars were out. And camped at 16,000 feet on Mt. Kilimanjaro, photographer Dan Heller recorded this marvelous 3 1/2 hour long exposure. Here the landscape is lit mostly by the stars. Flashlights give the tents an ...
Comet NEAT in Southern Skies
After last month's dramatic swoop past the Sun, Comet NEAT (C/2002 V1) appeared as a naked-eye comet, emerging from the evening twilight in planet Earth's southern skies. On March 1st, New Zealand photographer Noel Munford captured this telephoto ...
Where People Live on Planet Earth
Where do people live on Planet Earth? Although people inhabit every continent, the highest population densities occur in Asia. Sparsely inhabited regions occur on virtually every continent, however, including the Sahara Desert in Africa, the ...
In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula
The center of the Lagoon Nebula is busy with the awesome spectacle of star formation. Visible in the lower left, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense ...
Will the Universe End in a Big Rip?
How will our universe end? Recent speculation now includes a pervasive growing field of mysterious repulsive energy that rips virtually everything apart. Although the universe started with a Big Bang, analysis of recent cosmological ...
