‘Latest News’ Archives
Crescent ENCELADUS
A great way to see new images from NASA is to review the RAW images released. These are RAW images in the sense that they have not been processed to remove camera defects and other artifacts. You can see them on the CICLOPS site. This raw, unprocessed image of Enceladus was taken on August 13, 2010 and received on Earth August 14, 2010, so [...]
A cosmic question mark
To truly appreciate this picture you have to click to see the larger image. It represents an unusual shaped galaxy never before documented. The galaxy is curling around itself like a question mark. This picture was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. It is NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster. NGC 4696 is an [...]
The Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight
If you are hoping to see some meteors, then tonight might be your best opportunity. The Perseid meteor shower is underway and expected to peak tonight. With the Earth currently passing through a wide stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, each piece of debris can light up the sky and you get to see a meteor. The best time to see the [...]
An “Island Universe” in the Coma Cluster
AUGUST 10, 2010: A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy, known as NGC 4911, contains rich lanes of dust and gas near its center. These are silhouetted [...]
The Sand Dunes of Titan
Credit: Cassini Radar Mapper, JPL, JSC, ESA, NASA Central Titan, it turns out, is covered by sand, some of which appears strange. Images from the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn have uncovered long rows of huge sand dunes near Titan's equator that rise as high as 300 meters. Shadows indicate that most dune shapes are created [...]
The Perseids Meteor Shower is coming…
The highlight of the summer meteor showers: The Perseids, reach maximum around The 12th of August and may put on a display of aproximately 80 to 100 meteors per hour under ideal viewing conditions. Conditions this year are good due to there being no moon visible. Let’s hope the skies stay clear.
Zoom into a New VISTA of the Sculptor Galaxy
The new VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile (the Visible and InfraredSurvey Telescope for Astronomy) has captured a great new image of the Sculptor Galaxy(NGC 253), and this video allows you to zoom in for a closer look. The sequence starts with a wide view of the southern sky far from the Milky Way. Only a few stars are [...]
Young Star Cluster Westerlund 2
Dusty stellar nursery RCW 49 surrounds young star cluster Westerlund 2 in this remarkable composite skyscape from beyond the visible spectrum of light. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in black and white, complimenting the Chandra X-ray image data (in false color) of the hot energetic stars within the cluster's central [...]
Starry Night of Alamut
A meteor's streak and the arc of the Milky Way hang over the imposing mountain fortress of Alamut in this starry scene. Found in the central Alborz Mountains of Iran, Alamut Castle was built into the rock in the 9th century. The name means Eagle's Nest. Home of the legendary Assassins featured in the adventure movie Prince of Persia, [...]
Hydrogen in M51
This is perhaps the clearest image of M51 that I have yet seen. "M51 is a large galaxy, over 60,000 light-years across, with a readily apparent spiral structure. Also cataloged as NGC 5194, M51 is a part of a well-known interacting galaxy pair, its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweeping in front of companion galaxy NGC 5195 (top). This [...]
“Data” Narrates Hubble Documentary
Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek) is the narrator in this documentary movie "Hubble: Twenty Years of Discovery" in celebration of the Hubble twenty-year milestone, as NASA looks back at the contributions of this extraordinary scientific tool, and the scientists who created it. Credit: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Key Project Team, and The High-Z [...]
Wide Angle: The Cat’s Paw Nebula
Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula with a red color that originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms. [...]