The Milky Way Over the French Alps
Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? Chances are you have never seen it like this -- nor could you. In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light is visible across the sky. This band is the disk ...
Two Hours Before Neptune
Two hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these ...
Moonset, Planet Earth
During the Astro-1 astronomy mission of December, 1990, Space Shuttle astronauts photographed this stunning view of the setting full moon poised above the Earth's limb. In the foreground, towering clouds of condensing water vapor mark the extent ...
The Crab Nebula Pulsar Shrugs
How does a city-sized neutron star power the vast Crab Nebula? The expulsion of wisps of hot gas at high speeds appears to be at least part of the answer. Yesterday time-lapse movies taken from both the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble ...
Asteroid 1998 KY26
A day is just under 11 minutes long on 1998 KY26, a 30 meter wide, fast-spinning, water-rich asteroid. This computer simulated view of its lumpy surface has a resolution of about 3 meters and is based on radar and optical observations (click on ...
A Sagittarius Starscape
Many vast star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy are rich in clouds of stars, dust, and gas. First and foremost, visible in the above picture are millions of stars, many of which are similar to our Sun. Next huge filaments of dark ...
A Force from Empty Space: The Casimir...
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 ...
Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn
An unusual triangle of light will be particularly bright near the eastern horizon before sunrise during the next two months for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere. Once considered a false dawn, this triangle of light is actually Zodiacal ...
X-Ray Moon
This x-ray image of the Moon was made by the orbiting ROSAT (Röntgensatellit) Observatory in 1990. In this digital picture, pixel brightness corresponds to x-ray intensity. Consider the image in three parts: the bright hemisphere of the x-ray ...
Aristarchus Plateau
Anchored in the vast lava flows of the Moon's Oceanus Procellarum lies the Aristarchus Plateau. Recorded from a backyard observatory on planet Earth, this sharp, amazingly colorful view nicely captures the geologically diverse area, including the ...
