Peculiar Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus AWhat’s happened to the center of this galaxy? Dramatic dust lanes run across the center of unusual elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. These dust lanes are so thick they almost completely obscure the galaxy’s center in visible light. This is particularly unusual as Cen A’s older stars and oval shape are…Read More

A Message from EarthWhat are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The featured message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of an upgrade to the Arecibo Observatory – then the largest single radio telescope in the world – a string of 1’s and 0’s representing the diagram was sent. This…Read More

Robert Goddard and NellRobert H. Goddard, considered the father of modern rocketry, was born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882. As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells’ science fiction classic “War Of The Worlds” and dreamed of space flight. By 1926 he had designed, built, and flown the world’s first liquid fuel rocket. Launched 100 years ago,…Read More

Hickson 44 in LeoScanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44. The Hickson 44 galaxy group is about 100 million…Read More

Black Holes and Neutron Stars: 218 Mergers and CountingWhat is the sound of two black holes merging in deep space? Sound waves don’t propagate in vacuum, but gravitational waves do. In 2015 we were able to “hear” them for the first time and confirm one of Albert Einstein’s theoretical predictions. Each square on the grid of the featured image…Read More