Captured last week after sunset on a Chilean autumn night, an exceptional airglow floods this allsky view from Las Campanas Observatory. The airglow was so intense it diminished parts of the Milky Way as it arced horizon to horizon above the high Atacama desert. Originating at an altitude similar to aurorae, the luminous airglow is… Read More »
This image of the southern Greenland town of Narsaq was taken during an Operation IceBridge flight on Apr. 26, 2018. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Itd8IW
This image is not blurry. It shows in clear detail that the largest satellite galaxy to our Milky Way, the Large Cloud of Magellan (LMC), rotates. First determined with Hubble, the rotation of the LMC is presented here with fine data from the Sun-orbiting Gaia satellite. Gaia measures the positions of stars so accurately that… Read More »
Each and every day NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observes our Sun and relays observational data to scientists on Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IkYsf2
Four hundred years ago today (May 15, 1618) Johannes Kepler discovered the simple mathematical rule governing the orbits of the solar system’s planets, now recognized as Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion. At that time he was living in this tall house on The Hofgasse, a narrow street near the castle and main square of… Read More »
Galileo Galilei discovered Jupiter’s moon Europa in 1610. More than four centuries later, astronomers are still making discoveries about its icy surface. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wElr3b
Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting in 2013 January. Magma bubbles so hot they glowed shot away as liquid rock burst through the Earth’s surface from below. The featured image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano’s… Read More »
In the darkness of the distant universe, these galaxies resemble glowing fireflies, flickering candles, charred embers floating up from a bonfire, and light bulbs softly shining. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rA7xKw
This pretty cosmic cloud lies some 1,500 light-years away, it shape and color reminiscent of a blue robin’s egg. It spans about 3 light-years, nested securely within the boundaries of the southern constellation Fornax. Recognized as a planetary nebula it doesn’t represent a beginning though, but instead corresponds to a brief and final phase in… Read More »
Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way’s gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus,… Read More »