New View Of The Pillars Of Creation - Infrared

NGC 7129, Young Stars

M63 // Sunflower Galaxy

Helix Nebula in Visible and in Infrared Light

The Helix Nebula, also known as NGC 7293, is a large planetary nebula (PN) located in the constellation Aquarius. Planetary nebulae like the Helix are sculpted late in a Sun-like star’s life by a torrential gush of gases escaping from the dying star. They have nothing to do with planet formation, but got their name because they look like planetary disks when viewed through a small telescope.

Credit: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson.

A HD Sweep Of Pluto!

Click on the image above to see a HD sweep of the surface of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft! This is a short post made to accompany my other Pluto post here!

Credits: NASA/New Horizons/Jhu

A storm on Saturn so gigantic it’s “eating” it’s own tail.

Very colorful clouds of Rho Ophiuchi.

Image Credit & Copyright: Tom Masterson, ESO’s DSS

Northern lights over Nyrölä, Finland. My cousin called me last night and said “There’s no clouds over the Central Finland and it’s very dark.”. And so we drove at midnight 30 miles out of the city to get these photographs. It was magical. -Eero

Jupiter’s North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter’s north pole, taken during the spacecraft’s first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. The images show storm systems and weather activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system’s gas-giant planets.  “First glimpse of Jupiter’s north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “It’s bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to – this image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter. We’re seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features.”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Charon and Pluto: Strikingly Different Worlds

js