2020 March 5 The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty Image Credit & Copyright: Casey Good Explanation: This colorful skyscape spans about four full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of the region̵ […]
This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Tarantula Nebula in three wavelengths of infrared light, each represented by a different color. The magenta-colored regions are dust composed of molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are also found in ash from c
欧米茄（Omega）或天鹅星云是我们银河系中最明亮，质量最大的恒星形成区之一，其形状类似于我们今天看到的天鹅脖子。新的观测表明，它的区域是在多个恒星诞生时代分开形成的。来自平流层红外天文观测台（SOFIA）的新图像正在帮助科学家记录这个经过深入研究的星云的历史和演化。 “当今的星云拥有揭示其过去的秘密；我们只需要能够发现它们即可。”位于加州硅谷的NASA艾姆斯研究中心SOFIA科学中心的大学空间研究协会科学家WanggiLim说。“SOFIA使我们能够做到这一点，因此我们可以理解为什么星云会呈现出今天的样子。” 揭开星云的秘密并非易事。它位于5000光年之外的人马座。它的中心充满了银河系中10
2019 December 30 Messier 20 and 21 Image Credit & Copyright: Stanislav Volskiy, Chilescope Team Explanation: The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful stud
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the so-called Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center and appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals
Within the tempestuous Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain.” This three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 in 2010, is made up primarily of dust and gas, and exhibits signs of intense star-forming activity. The colors in this composite image c
2019 October 30 M42: Inside the Orion Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Josep M. Drudis & Don Goldman Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge o
2019 October 15 The Galaxy Above Image Credit & Copyright: Rodrigo Guerra Explanation: Have you contemplated your home galaxy lately? If your sky looked like this, perhaps you’d contemplate it more often! The featured picture is actually a composite of two images taken last month from the
2019 September 27 The Annotated Galactic Center Image Credit & Copyright: Miguel Claro (TWAN, Dark Sky Alqueva) Explanation: The center of our Milky Way galaxy can be found some 26,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius. Even on a dark night, you can’t really see it thou
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5307, a planetary nebula that lies about 10,000 light-years from Earth. It can be seen in the constellation Centaurus (the Centaur), which can be seen primarily in the southern hemisphere. A planetary nebula is the final stage of a Sun-li
