[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, 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, 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 […]
By Eric Metaxas, Wall Street Journal In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing […]
[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 […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Gemini Observatory, AURA, Travis Rector (Univ. Alaska Anchorage)] NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot, a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter image data from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Over 20 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA, Judy Schmidt] The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. The […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Image Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away. Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star-forming spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack […]
