Doomed Star Eta Carinae
Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when - it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae's mass - about 100 times greater than our Sun - makes it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova. ...
A Perseid Meteor
This weekend, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of cosmic sand and gravel shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle will streak across the sky as they vaporize during entry into Earth's atmosphere. The Perseids result from the ...
Fragments of Comet LINEAR
What do you call a bunch of comet fragments anyway ... a flock, a covey, a swarm? The question is definitely relevant to comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4 LINEAR) whose nucleus apparently fragmented late last month during its first trip through the inner ...
Other Worlds and HD 38529
After the latest round of discovery announcements, the list of known worlds of distant suns has grown to 50. While extrasolar planet discoveries are sure to continue, none - so far - points clearly to another planetary system like our own. Take, ...
A Solar Filament Lifts Off
Hot gas frequently erupts from the Sun. One such eruption produced the glowing filament pictured above, which was captured on July 19 by the Earth-orbiting TRACE satellite. The filament, although small compared to the overall size of the Sun, ...
Comet LINEAR Disperses
What's happened to the nucleus of Comet LINEAR? The brightest comet this year has unexpectedly broken up into many smaller pieces. The break-up occurred on or about July 25 and was noted by many astronomers around the world with particularly ...
Nearby Star Episilon Eridani Has a...
A planet has been found orbiting a Sun-like star only 10 light-years away. No direct picture of the planet was taken - the planet was discovered by the gravitational wobble it created on its parent star, Epsilon Eridani. The discovery marks the ...
The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own ...
Halley's Nucleus: An Orbiting Iceberg
What does a comet nucleus look like? Formed from the primordial stuff of the solar system, it is thought to resemble a very dirty iceberg. But for active comets, telescopic images only reveal the surrounding cloud of gas and dust, the comet's ...
M15: Dense Globular Star Cluster
Life might get dull at the core of M15 but the sky would always be bright with stars! In fact, only 40,000 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, M15 is one of the most densely packed globular star clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy. This ...
