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| This planetary nebula is 650 light years away in the constellation Aquarius. It is destined to become a white dwarf star. | This is a 30 second exposure taken through the window of the ISS pointed along its spin axis toward the constellation Grus. | |
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| Lunar Eclipse | Spiral Galaxy NGC 253 | |
| This is a montage of telescopic images of the Moon sliding through planet Earth's shadow on May 15, 2003 taken from Quebec, Canada. | In the southern hemisphere this sideways spiral galaxy can be seen with a good pair of binoculars. | |
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| Barnard 72 - The Snake Nebula | Center of the Virgo Cluster | |
| Interstellar dark clouds of obscuring gas and dust create this nebula in cosmic silhouette in the constellation Ophiucus. | This cluster contains over 100 galaxies of all types - spiral, elliptical and irregular. It is noticably pulling on our Milky Way galaxy. | |
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| Valles Marineris - The Grand Canyon of Mars | Big Mars from Hubble | |
| This valley is the largest one in the solar system. It is 3000 km long compared to the Grand Canyon in Arizona which is 800 km long. | This picture of Mars taken by Hubble on Aug. 26, 2003 shows the white south polar cap. It is made of frozen carbon dioxide. | |
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| Crab Nebula from VLT | Sombrero Galaxy from Hubble | |
| This nebula is the result of a spectacular supernova that exploded in 1054 AD. In the center lies a pulsar rotating 30 times per sec. | This is M104. Spectacular dust rings harbor many young bright stars. Old stars cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. | |
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| Aurora in Oklahoma | Superwind from the Cigar Galaxy | |
| Following the recent intense solar activity, Dave Ewoldt captured this photograph that includes the stars of the Big Dipper. | This is M82, a galaxy that was stirred up during a pass of the large spiral galaxy M81. Ionized hydrogen gas is emitting the red light. | |
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| An Orion Deep Field | Variable Star V838 Monocerotis | |
| This digital composite picture shows the glowing Orion nebula (M42) and the dark Horsehead nebula. | Light from the stellar flash echoes across and illuminates pre-existing dust shells around this star which is 20,000 light years from Earth. | |
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| Ring Galaxy AM 0644-741 | Saturn's Rings in Natural Color | |
| This immense galaxy is 150,000 light years in diameter. It is made of newly formed, extremely bright, massive stars. | This picture was taken by the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are mostly light water-ice. | |
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| Cat's Eye Planetary Nebula, NGC 6543 | Orion Nebula M42 | |
| This nebula's dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. | This nebula is a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. | |
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| Comet Machholz (C/2204 Q2) | Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300 | |
| The "green" comet is shown here near the Pleiades star cluster. Lionel Bernardi of Nice, France took this picture on January 7, 2005. | Blue and red supergiant stars and star clusters are shown in the spiral arms and dust lanes. | |
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| Auroras on Saturn | Enceladus from Cassini | |
| Saturn's auroras make total or partial rings around magnetic poles. These auroras persist for days, as opposed to only minutes on Earth. | The Cassini spacecraft captured this false-color view of Saturn's moon Enceladus, which shows the wide variety of this icy moon's geology. | |
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| Barnard's Loop Around Orion | Whirlpool Galaxy M51 | |
| A diffuse ring of unknown origin surrounds the three stars of Orion's belt. High resolution image. | The winding arms of spiral galaxy M51 are long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. | |
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| Milky Way Bar | Spiral Galaxy NGC 1350 | |
| This artist's rendering shows a view of our own Milky Way Galaxy and its central bar as it might appear if viewed from above. | This beautiful galaxy is about the size of the Milky Way. It reveals many background galaxies. It is 85 million light-years from Earth. | |
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| Dione from Cassini | Gravitational Tractor | |
| This is one of Saturn's moons - Dione. Saturn's thin rings are shown across the bottom. They are casting arcing shadows across Saturn's cloud tops. | A hypothetical 20 ton nuclear-electric spacecraft tows an asteroid by simply hovering near it. Using ion thrusters it could change the course of the asteroid so it would avoid hitting Earth. | |
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| The 37 Cluster | A Digital Opportunity Rover on Mars | |
| This open cluster forms a numerical asterism that looks like "37". Also called NGC 2169, the stars of this cluster are young, having formed about 8 million years ago. They are 3600 light years from Earth. | This is a digital image of the Opportunity rover added to a real image taken of the Endurance Crater on Mars taken by the Opportunity itself. | |
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| Cartwheel Galaxy | Galaxy wars: M81 vs. M82 | |
| The rim of this galaxy is caused by the collision of a small intruder galaxy passing through the larger one. The photo is a composite taken by four observatories - X-ray, ultraviolet, visible and infrared. | Galaxy M81 on the left is surrounded by blue spiral arms. It has been locked in gravitational combat with M82 on the right for the past billion years. | |
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| On May 8, 2006 fragment C of broken comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 appears to be passing near M57, the Ring Nebula. It is actually only 30 light-seconds from Earth. | The edge-on view of this galaxy shows a subtle, reddish bulge surrounding a bright nucleus, a blue disk of stars running parallel to the dust lane, and a transparent outer halo. | |
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| International Space Station - July, 2006 | Green Aurora over Lake Superior | |
| This view is from the Space Shuttle Discovery at the conclusion of a 12 day visit. It shows numerous modules, trusses, and long wing-like solar panels. | Electrons and protons from the Sun impact air molecules that temporarily lose electrons. When oxygen molecules reacquire these electrons, they emit green light. | |
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| This famous Martian rock mesa is known as the Face of Mars because of its appearance when viewing it from straight down. Here it is shown as a digital-perspective image and looks quite natural. | This is an eclipse of the Sun by Saturn as photographed by the orbiting Cassini spacecraft flying through the shadow. The night side of Saturn is partly lit by light from its own ring system. | |
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| Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula | ||
| This picture spans 14 light-years. It show swirls of dust illuminated by light from the outburst of the binary star V838 near the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, 20,000 light-years from the Sun. | The bright star to the left of center is Rigel. It is in the constellation Orion. Light from Rigel is illuminating the dust of the Witch Head Nebula. They are about 1000 light-years from Earth. | |
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| Stan Richard took this picture of the aurora on Dec. 14, 2006 at Saylorville Lake north of Des Moines, Iowa. He reports lots of movement and pulsations, nice flowing curtains and some beautiful red beams. | At 8:00 pm on Dec. 14, 2006, David Renneke took this picture of the aurora and the big dipper a few miles northwest of Davenport, Iowa. Click here for further information and for more pictures. | |
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| These are four pictures of the Sun taken on Dec. 4, 2006 from STEREO, a pair of NASA satellites that will use stereoscopic (3D) vision to create a global picture of the Sun and its influences. Here the false-colors represent temperatures in the upper solar atmosphere. | The International Space Station is being constructed piecemeal. Here Robert Curbeam (USA) and Christer Fuglesang (Sweden) work to attach a new truss segment and begin to upgrade the power grid. | |
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| Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) from Australia | Jupiter's moon Io | |
| The Great Comet of 2007 is now sweeping past the Sun and may be seen in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the brightest comet in decades. Many excellent pictures taken in January in both hemispheres are shown in this Comet Gallery. | Two sulfurous eruptions are visible on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in this color composite image from the robotic Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. | |
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| The purple ring at Jupiter's north pole traces X-ray auroras that were observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Jupiter's polar regions are crackling with electricity and this sets the stage for non-stop auroras. | This Hubble image shows young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that may contain a supermassive black hole. | |
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| International Space Station in June 2007 | Dark Lunar Eclipse | |
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With the recent visit of the space shuttle Atlantis the ISS has now expanded to include a second long array of solar panels. Also shown are several modules, a robotic arm and a supply ship. |
During this total lunar eclipse on Aug. 28, 2007, the Moon remained visible, reflecting reddened light filtering into the Earth's shadow. The light comes from all the sunsets and sunrises around the edges of a silhouetted Earth as viewed from the Moon. |
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| Iapetus in Black and White | Comet Holmes | |
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Saturn's third largest moon, Iapetus, is sometimes called the yin-yang moon because its leading hemisphere is very dark, reflecting about 5 percent of the Sun's light, while its trailing hemisphere is almost as bright as snow. This recent Cassini spacecraft flyby image spans about 35 kilometers across a cratered transition zone between bright and dark terrain. |
This is a composite image of exploding Comet 17P/Holmes. German astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer combined various exposures taken through his 4.1-inch refracting telescope and processed the composite to highlight the comet's bright golden core (with jets and streamers), its gossamer green halo and an emerging faint blue tail. Local photos. |
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| Medusa Nebula in Gemini | Columbus Lab - International Space Station | |
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This shows the evolution of a low mass star from a red giant to a hot white dwarf. In the process it shrugs off its outer layers and exhibits a glowing gas. This nebula in the constellation Gemini is about 4 light-years across and is 1,500 light-years from Earth. |
In February, 2008 the Columbus laboratory was added to the International Space Station. During its 10-year projected lifespan, scientists will be able to conduct thousands of experiments in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and a whole host of other disciplines, all in the weightlessness of orbit. |
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| Martian moon Phobos | Jupiter's Red Spots | |
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This stunning, enhanced-color image of Stickney Crater and surroundings was recorded by a camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within 6000 km of Phobos in March 2008. |
A third red spot has appeared alongside the Great Red Spot and Red Spot Jr. (first seen in 2006) in the turbulent Jovian atmosphere. This new red spot was previously a white oval-shaped storm. The change to a red color indicates its swirling storm clouds are rising to heights like the clouds of the Great Red Spot. This is a Hubble photo taken on 9-May-08. |
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| New Discoveries at Mercury | Exploring M57 - The Ring Nebula | |
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On Jan. 14, 2008, the MESSENGER spacecraft passed 200 kilometers above Mercury's surface. It imaged the surface, measured its magnetic field discovering that its dipolar, and observed atoms of hydrogen, helium, sodium, potassium, and calcium in the exosphere. Here we see a color image of the Caloris basin. Orange hues just inside the Caloris basin rim mark the locations of features thought to be volcanic. |
The Ring Nebula is about 2000 light-years away. This shows looping filaments of glowing gas extending from M57's central star. The red emission is from hydrogen atoms, but the pronounced blue/green color is due to emission from oxygen atoms at higher temperatures within the rings. The central ring is about 1 light-year across. |
