[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)] In the coming days, Venus shines near the western horizon at sunset. To find Earth’s sister planet in twilight skies just look for the brilliant evening star. Tonight very close to the Pleiades star cluster, Venus dominates this springtime night skyscape taken only a few days […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA] It was late in the northern martian spring when the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spied this local denizen. Tracking across the flat, dust-covered Amazonis Planitia in 2012, the core of this whirling dust devil is about 140 meters in diameter. […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, NASA, ESA, Hubble] 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 Milky Way Galaxy does. Although nearby when compared to most other clusters, light […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Voyager 2, NASA] Two hours before [its] 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 clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks. […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Sergei Makurin] You may have heard of the Seven Sisters in the sky, but have you heard about the Seven Strong Men on the ground? Located just west of the Ural Mountains, the unusual Manpupuner rock formations are one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. How these ancient 40-meter […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Deep Sky Colors Sweeping north in planet Earth’s sky, Comet Lovejoy’s greenish coma and blue tinted ion tail stretched across this field of stars in the constellation Taurus on Jan. 13. The inset at the upper left shows the 1/2 degree angular size of the full […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA] Soft hues, partially lit orbs, a thin trace of the ring, and slight shadows highlight this understated view of the majestic surroundings of the giant planet Saturn. Looking nearly back toward the Sun, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn captured crescent […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION / Jia Hao] Known in the north as a winter meteor shower, the 2014 Geminids rain down on this rugged, frozen landscape. The scene was recorded from the summit of Mt. Changbai along China’s northeastern border with North Korea as a composite of digital frames capturing bright meteors near […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE for High Resolution / Tony Hallas Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Credit:Martin Pugh] The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier’s famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star, witnessed by astronomers […]
