NGC 6072: A Complex Planetary Nebula from WebbWhy is this nebula so complex? The Webb Space Telescope has imaged a nebula in great detail that is thought to have emerged from a Sun-like star. NGC 6072 has been resolved into one of the more unusual and complex examples of planetary nebula. The featured image is in infrared light with the red color…Read More

Blue Arcs Toward AndromedaWhat are these gigantic blue arcs near the Andromeda Galaxy (M31)? Discovered in 2022 by amateur astronomers, the faint arcs — dubbed SDSO 1 — span nearly the same angular size as M31 itself. At first, their origin was a mystery: are they actually near the Andromeda Galaxy, or alternatively near to our Sun? Now, over…Read More

Milky Way and Exploding MeteorIn about a week the Perseid Meteor Shower will reach its maximum. Grains of icy rock will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth’s atmosphere. These grains were shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids result from the annual crossing of the Earth through Comet Swift-Tuttle’s orbit, and…Read More

Fireflies, Meteors, and Milky WayTaken on July 29 and July 30, a registered and stacked series of exposures creates this dreamlike view of a northern summer night. Multiple firefly flashes streak across the foreground as the luminous Milky Way arcs above the horizon in the Sierra de Órganos national park of central Mexico, The collection of…Read More

Small Dark NebulaA small, dark, nebula looks isolated near the center of this telescopic close-up. The wedge-shaped cosmic cloudlet lies within a relatively crowded region of space though. About 7,000 light-years distant and filled with glowing gas and an embedded cluster of young stars, the region is known as M16 or the Eagle Nebula. Hubble’s…Read More