Red Spider Planetary Nebula from WebbOh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs…Read More

Orion: The Running Man NebulaWhat part of Orion is this? Just north of the famous Orion Nebula is a picturesque star forming region in Orion’s Sword that contains a lot of intricate dust — some of which appears blue because it reflects the light of bright embedded stars. The region’s popular name is the Running Man Nebula because, looked at from…Read More

Galle: Happy Face Crater on MarsMars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face that is both smiling and winking. These markings were originally discovered in the 1970s in pictures taken by the Viking Orbiter. The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft that orbited…Read More

Artemis I: Flight Day 13On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1 mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth. At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant retrograde orbit also puts Orion nearly 70,000 kilometers from the Moon. In the same field of view in this video frame from flight day 13, planet and…Read More

NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in PerseusNGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This telescopic close-up spans…Read More