[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known. The galaxy’s protracted […]
Evangelical preacher the Rev. Franklin Graham has warned that much like the decline of the Babylonian empire close to 2,500 years ago, America may also be staring down at its end, unless it turns back to God. … He noted that 2,500 year ago, present day Iraq was known as the Babylonian empire, and boasted […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Processed & Copyright: Hunter Wilson] Why is this galaxy so thin? Many disk galaxies are actually just as thin as NGC 5866, pictured above, but are not seen edge-on from our vantage point. One galaxy that is situated edge-on is our own Milky Way […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, NASA/GSFC/Arizona State U./Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter] On the Moon, the Earth never rises — or sets. If you were to sit on the surface of the Moon, you would see the Earth just hang in the sky. This is because the Moon always keeps the same side toward the Earth. […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)] Planet Earth’s horizon stretches across this recent Solar System group portrait, seen from the southern hemisphere’s Las Campanas Observatory. Taken before dawn it traces the ecliptic with a line-up familiar to November’s early morning risers. Toward the east are bright planets Venus, […]
Is faith in God just a holdover from our evolutionary past? . . . Once upon a time on the African Serengeti, our Australopithecine great-great-grandparents heard a rustle in the tall grass. Those who shrugged it off were frequently killed and eaten by lions. But those who got spooked and ran away survived to pass […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Michael Wilson] This was a sky to show the kids. All in all, three children, three planets, the Moon, a star, an airplane and a mom were all captured in one image near Great Salt Lake in Utah, USA in early September of 2005. Minus the airplane, this busy […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Wally Pacholka (AstroPics.com, TWAN)] You don’t have to be at Monument Valley to see the Milky Way arch across the sky but it helps. Only at Monument Valley USA would you see a picturesque foreground that includes these iconic rock peaks called buttes. Buttes are composed of hard rock […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, Jimmy Walker] A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region includes cosmic sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex. Described […]
A county clerk in Kentucky has been found guilty of contempt and sent to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to her own religious objections. Kim Davis, the clerk at Rowan County who garnered national attention for refusing to issue the marriage licenses, was found in contempt of court Thursday […]
