nebula
Reader Photo Gallery: DIY Astrophotos From Star Geek Campout
This stunning shot of the Eagle Nebula is one of several reader photos sent in from the Salisbury Star Party in the UK two weeks ago.
Also known as M16, the Eagle Nebula is a bright region of active star formation situated about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. This nebula is the site of one of the most famous Hubble images, “The Pillars of Creation.”
Buckyballs Found in Space
The discovery of these carbon structures in space could have a profound impact on our understanding of chemistry in the cosmos.
Bean Nebula's Bubbles of Glowing Gas
Today's dose of spectacular space imagery comes courtesy of Hubble: a colorful close-up view of one of the many bright bubbles of glowing gas that make up the Large Magellanic Cloud.
A vast, cosmic cloudy brain looms in a nearby galaxy
Deep inside the Milky Way’s companion galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud lies a vast complex of stars, gas, and dust. From our vantage point, 170,000 light years away, we see it as a softly-glowing pinkish brain-shaped cloud studded with stars — a description that grossly underdescribes the tremendous beauty of the newly-released Hubble view of it:
Oh, my. Click it to get a bigger version, or go here to get a 26 Mb 4000×4000 pixel version.
Fight! Fight! 'The Great Debate' Reborn as Supernova Spat?
As two groups of astronomers debate the origin of a possible new type of supernova, Jennifer Ouellette looks back at 'The Great Debate' between Heber D Curtis and Harlow Shapley in 1920.
Hubble Spots Speeding Rogue Star
A star in the Large Magellanic Cloud has been catapulted from it's stellar nursery and the Hubble Space Telescope has done some detective work to understand why it's traveling at breakneck speeds.
Hubble Spies Trailblazing Star Ripped from Stellar Nursery
Sometimes even the biggest stars can be bullied. Hubble has spotted a large star ejected from its place of birth, probably catapulted by the gravity of a couple of stellar siblings.
Chaos! Turbulence! Blowouts! Herschel!
Herschel is a European space-based astronomical observatory. It launched last year, and the first science papers are now being published. Along with those papers, the European Space Agency released a bunch of way cool pictures.
As usual, I could use up a mole of electrons describing them, but one in particular caught my eye:
Baby Star Blows a Bubble, Force-Feeding a Stellar 'Goliath'
The Herschel Space Observatory has spotted a young star blasting a cavity out of a nebula. The resulting 'bubble' is sparking the birth of more stars, one of them with the potential to grow into a stellar 'Goliath'.
On Little Cat's Feet: VISTA Captures the Cat's Paw Nebula
The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) has done it again, this time imaging the Cat's Paw Nebula with stunning clarity.
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