Stars and Dust in the Pacman NebulaStars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular clouds from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds. The heat they generate evaporates the dark molecular dust as well as causing ambient hydrogen…Read More

LDN 1471: A Windblown Star CavityWhat is the cause of this unusual parabolic structure? This illuminated cavity, known as LDN 1471, was created by a newly forming star, seen as the bright source at the peak of the parabola. This protostar is experiencing a stellar outflow which is then interacting with the surrounding material in the Perseus…Read More

Pluto at NightThe night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when the spacecraft was at a range of some 21,000 kilometers from Pluto, about 19 minutes after…Read More

Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3Put on your red/blue glasses and gaze across the western Ocean of Storms on the surface of the Moon. The 3D anaglyph features Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the Surveyor 3 spacecraft in November of 1969. Surveyor 3 had landed at the site on the inside slope of a small crater about 2 1/2 years earlier in April of…Read More

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 from WebbA mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That’s twice the size of our own barred spiral Milky Way. This sharp image from the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)…Read More