[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] The Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 million light years away is the most distant object easily seen by the unaided eye. Other apparent denizens of the night sky, stars, clusters, and nebulae, typically range from a few hundred to a few thousand light-years away and lie well within our own […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION]: Martin Pugh (Heaven’s Mirror Observatory) A careful look at this colorful cosmic snapshot reveals a surprising number of galaxies both near and far toward the constellation Ursa Major. The most striking is NGC 3718, the warped spiral galaxy near picture center. NGC 3718’s spiral arms look twisted and extended, […]
Ben Rich was the director of Lockheed’s Skunk Works from 1975 to 1991. Skunk Works is a division of Lockheed Martin that develops super high-tech aircraft, and is responsible for developing the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk stealth bomber, and the F-22 Raptor. In a recent interview with Open Minds, Jan Harzan, the […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] / Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA & NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Inst. Washington In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] Caltech / Palomar Observatory / Paul Gardner, Salvatore Grasso, and Ryan Hannahoe Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance, M104 features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and globular clusters. Reasons for the Sombrero’s hat-like appearance include an unusually large and extended central bulge […]
[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE] / Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona] The beautiful, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines at the upper left. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a compact red emission region, and streamers of obscuring dust against a backdrop of […]
Here is what might happen if we suddenly encountered a day without satellites… 08:00 There was nothing sudden. Planes did not fall out of the sky, the lights didn’t go out or the water supplies fail. At least, not at first. … But outside, the loss of global satellite communications was putting the world in […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION], NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage The Ring Nebula (M57) is probably [next to Saturn’s rings] the most famous celestial band. … The recent mapping of the expanding nebula’s 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image, indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] / Bob Franke Beautiful barred spiral galaxy M109, 109th entry in Charles Messier’s famous catalog of bright Nebulae and Star Clusters, is found just below the Big Dipper’s bowl in the northern constellation Ursa Major. In telescopic views, its striking central bar gives the galaxy the appearance of the […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] / Isaac Gutiérrez Pascual Sometimes the sky above can become quite a show…. In the above image taken in Spain, a crescent Moon and the planet Venus, on the far right, were captured during sunset posing against a deep blue sky. In the foreground, dark storm clouds loom across […]