Miranda
Miranda is a bizarre world which surely had a tempestuous past. The innermost of the larger Uranian moons, Miranda is almost 300 miles in diameter and was discovered only 50 years ago (February 16, 1948) by the renown American planetary ...
Shocked by Supernova 1987a
even years ago the brightest supernova of modern times was recorded. Now the expanding debris from this tremendous stellar explosion is seen to be crashing into previously expelled material. The onset of this collision is shown by the arrow in ...
Sagittarius Dwarf to Collide with...
Our Galaxy is being invaded. Recent observations indicate that in the next 100 million years, the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy will move though the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy yet again . The Sagittarius Dwarf (Sgr), shown as the extended ...
Stars Without Galaxies
Galaxies are made up of stars, but are all stars found within galaxies? Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers exploring the Virgo Cluster of galaxies have now found about 600 red giant stars adrift in intergalactic space. Above is an ...
The Rosette Nebula
Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of the this flowery emission nebula. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young ...
Explorer I
Inaugurating the era of space exploration for the US, the First Explorer was launched into Earth orbit forty years ago (February 1, 1958) by the Army Ballistic Missle Agency. The Explorer I satellite weighed about 30 pounds, was 6 feet long, 6 ...
In A Grand Canyon On Mars
In a grand canyon on Mars, steep slopes fall away from a smooth plateau revealing striking layered rock formations. The canyon is part of the Valles Marineris, a 2,500 mile long system of canyons cutting across the Martian equator. This view, ...
Ultra-Fast Pulsar
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars, born in the violent crucibles of supernova explosions. Like cosmic lighthouses, beams of radiation from surface hotspots sweep past our viewpoint creating pulses which reveal the rotation rates of these ...
All of Mars
Mars Global Surveyor is photographing Mars. The robot spacecraft arrived last September and continues to use solar panel aerobraking to help maneuver it to a better orbit to survey all of Mars The above image is a reconstruction of several ...
The Witch Head Nebula
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble ... Maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is associated with the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion. More ...
