At The Core Of M15
Densely packed stars in the core of the globular cluster M15 are shown in this Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image. The star colors roughly indicate their temperatures - hot stars appear blue, cooler stars look reddish-orange. The region visible ...
Dusting Spiral Galaxies
How much dust is in spiral galaxies? Does it block out much of the starlight? Because astronomers rely on an accurate knowledge of galaxy properties to investigate a wide range of problems, like galaxy and quasar evolution and the nature of dark ...
Eugene Shoemaker: 1928-1997
ugene Shoemaker's passion was Astrogeology. He dreamed of going to the Moon. Credited with inventing the branch of Astrogeology within the U.S. Geological Survey, his contributions to the field and the study of impact craters, lunar science, ...
A Distant Destiny
Watching galaxies recede, observational astronomers of the 20th century discovered an astounding fact - the Universe is expanding. Will it continue to expand forever? The speed of light is finite so looking into the distant Universe is equivalent ...
El Ni?o Water Rhythm
This year's El Ni?o is the strongest ever recorded. The large amount of warm water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator is causing unusual weather all over planet Earth. The above false-color images of Earth show the relative levels of warm ...
The Keyhole Nebula
The dark dusty Keyhole Nebula gets its name from its unusual shape. Officially designated NGC 3324, the Keyhole Nebula is a smaller region superposed on the larger Eta Carina Nebula. These nebulae were created by the dying star Eta Carina, which ...
Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens
Gravity can bend light. Almost all of the bright objects in this Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the cluster known as Abell 2218. The cluster is so massive and so compact that its gravity bends and focuses the light from galaxies ...
Disorder in Stephan's Quintet
What are five closely grouped galaxies doing in this image? The grouping is commonly known as Stephan's Quintet. Four of the galaxies show essentially the same redshift suggesting that they are at the same distance from us. The large bluish ...
Saturnian Aurora
Girdling the second largest planet in the Solar System, Saturn's Rings are one of the most spectacular sights for earthbound telescopes. This recently released image, from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope's STIS instrument, offers a striking ...
Destination: Moon
Tuesday, January 6, at 9:28 p.m. EST, NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft climbed into the sky above Cape Canaveral Air Station riding an Athena II rocket. Representing NASA's first Moon mission since the 1972 flight of Apollo 17, this launch also ...
