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The Magnificent Barred Spiral M109: A Cosmic Masterpiece in Ursa Major

The Magnificent Barred Spiral M109: A Cosmic Masterpiece in Ursa Major

June 27, 2025, 2:04 pm EDT
Saturn’s Enceladus: Does an Ocean beneath Ice Harbor Life?

Saturn’s Enceladus: Does an Ocean beneath Ice Harbor Life?

June 27, 2025, 2:57 pm EDT
UGC 2885: The Colossal Galaxy 800,000 Light-Years Across

UGC 2885: The Colossal Galaxy 800,000 Light-Years Across

June 27, 2025, 2:29 pm EDT
The Starry Night Sky: A Glimpse into the Vast Diversity of Stars

The Starry Night Sky: A Glimpse into the Vast Diversity of Stars

June 4, 2025, 11:51 am EDT
Does a Spiral Galaxy Hide a Mini-Spiral in Its Core? M61 Reveals Cosmic Nesting Dolls

Does a Spiral Galaxy Hide a Mini-Spiral in Its Core? M61 Reveals Cosmic Nesting Dolls

June 27, 2025, 2:12 pm EDT
More in Cosmic
The Cosmic Crucible: How Stars Are Born—Insights from W5's Infrared Portrait

The Cosmic Crucible: How Stars Are Born—Insights from W5's Infrared Portrait

The Core Processes of Star Formation: Gravity and Gas in Cosmic Ballet Stars emerge from dense molecular clouds (composed mainly of hydrogen molecules and dust), with their formation unfolding in critical stages:

Overlooked Cosmic Jewel: The Stunning Spiral Galaxy NGC 3521

Overlooked Cosmic Jewel: The Stunning Spiral Galaxy NGC 3521

Just 35 million light-years from Earth in Leo, the springtime northern constellation, lies NGC 3521—a bright spiral galaxy visible through small telescopes yet often overshadowed by amateur astronomers’ focus on Leo’s more famous spirals, M66 and M65. This cosmic portrait reveals its overlooked splendor, hiding a trove of galactic secrets in its swirling arms.

The Mysterious Spot on the Moon: It's the International Space Station

The Mysterious Spot on the Moon: It's the International Space Station

What caused that strange spot on the Moon? The answer is the International Space Station (ISS). In 2019, this orbiting space platform was precisely captured in front of a crescent Moon. Taken in Palo Alto, California, the featured photo used a 1/667-second exposure, while the ISS took about half a second to cross the lunar face.

UGC 2885: The Colossal Galaxy 800,000 Light-Years Across

UGC 2885: The Colossal Galaxy 800,000 Light-Years Across

In this Hubble Space Telescope image, foreground stars with bright stellar spikes in Perseus lie within the Milky Way, while the focus reveals UGC 2885—a giant spiral galaxy 232 million light-years from Earth. Stretching 800,000 light-years (eight times the Milky Way’s diameter), it hosts nearly 100 trillion stars—10 times our galaxy’s population—making it a pivotal case study for how galaxies achieve colossal sizes.

The Brightest Stars in the Night Sky: IAU-Named Icons and Their Ancient Tales

The Brightest Stars in the Night Sky: IAU-Named Icons and Their Ancient Tales

For millennia, humanity has named the brightest stars, weaving their light into myths and calendars. Today, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) standardizes these names to unite global science, but each moniker still holds cultural treasures. Here’s a journey through the 25 brightest stars—by apparent magnitude—with their IAU-designated names and the stories behind them.

Saturn’s Enceladus: Does an Ocean beneath Ice Harbor Life?

Saturn’s Enceladus: Does an Ocean beneath Ice Harbor Life?

Enceladus, Saturn’s icy moon, harbors a subsurface ocean beneath tiger-stripe fractures that erupt icy particles into space. These geysers form a dense ice cloud over the south pole, feeding Saturn’s faint E ring. The Cassini spacecraft (2004–2017) provided definitive evidence, capturing this true-color, high-resolution image during a close flyby, revealing shadowed ice chasms and active vents.

First-Ever Capture of Supernova Remnant G115.5+9.1: A Cosmic Duo Named After Mythological Monsters

First-Ever Capture of Supernova Remnant G115.5+9.1: A Cosmic Duo Named After Mythological Monsters

A team of amateur astrophotographers has uncovered the faint remains of a long-dead massive star, capturing the first image of supernova remnant G115.5+9.1—dubbed "Scylla"—in the constellation Cepheus (the Ethiopian king of myth). The discovery, hidden in sky survey data, reveals a glowing patch where hydrogen atoms emit red light and oxygen atoms shine in faint blue, marking the aftermath of a stellar explosion that likely occurred thousands of years ago.

NGC 3344: A Face-On Spiral Galaxy Unveiled in Hubble’s Multispectral Glow

NGC 3344: A Face-On Spiral Galaxy Unveiled in Hubble’s Multispectral Glow

The grand spiral galaxy NGC 3344 presents its full face to Earth, a 40,000-light-year-wide cosmic pinwheel in Leo Minor just 20 million light-years away. This Hubble Space Telescope multispectral close-up—spanning ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths—reveals exquisite details across 15,000 light-years of its central region, laying bare the galaxy’s lifecycle in living color.

The Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302): A Fiery Cosmic Chrysalis in Scorpius

The Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302): A Fiery Cosmic Chrysalis in Scorpius

NGC 6302, a planetary nebula nicknamed the "Butterfly Nebula," lives up to its floral-insect moniker with wing-like gas plumes spanning 3 light-years. Located 4,000 light-years away in Scorpius, this stellar corpse showcases the dramatic final act of a massive star—now a 250,000°C central star evolving into a white dwarf, its ultraviolet radiation ionizing the surrounding nebula into a kaleidoscopic display.

Savudrija Lighthouse and Celestial Star Trails: A Timeless Navigation Portrait

Savudrija Lighthouse and Celestial Star Trails: A Timeless Navigation Portrait

The historic Savudrija Lighthouse shines along the northern coast of Istria Peninsula in this masterful night-sky composition. Built in the early 19th century, the beacon has guided Adriatic sailors for centuries, its beam contrasting with the ancient navigational icon above: Polaris, the North Star. In the image, Alpha Ursae Minoris traces the shortest arc around the North Celestial Pole—the cosmic pivot of Earth’s axis—at the center of concentric star trails.

The Veil Nebula: Cosmic Relic of a Supernova That Lit the Ancient Sky

The Veil Nebula: Cosmic Relic of a Supernova That Lit the Ancient Sky

These ethereal wisps are the last observable remains of a star that perished in a supernova explosion ~7,000 years ago, giving birth to the Veil Nebula. When the star detonated, its expanding gas cloud shone as brightly as a crescent Moon, lingering in Earth’s sky for weeks during humanity’s prehistoric era. Today, this supernova remnant—known as the Cygnus Loop—has faded, visible only through small telescopes pointed at the constellation Cygnus.

Arp 273: A Cosmic Love Story of Colliding Galaxies in Andromeda

Arp 273: A Cosmic Love Story of Colliding Galaxies in Andromeda

What’s happening to this spiral galaxy? The answer lies in its violent tango with a neighboring dwarf galaxy. At the center of this image, UGC 1810 forms the Arp 273 galaxy pair with its collision partner, showcasing a cosmic drama where gravity reshapes stellar landscapes. The most striking feature—UGC 1810’s outer blue ring—betrays the chaos of their gravitational battle, while the smaller companion galaxy appears distorted in the embrace.

Sextans A: The Cosmic Underdog Where Stars Bloom in Ambery Clusters

Sextans A: The Cosmic Underdog Where Stars Bloom in Ambery Clusters

While grand spiral galaxies steal the limelight with symmetric arms and glowing star nurseries, the irregular dwarf galaxy Sextans A weaves its own stellar saga in the cosmic periphery. Just 5,000 light-years across, this galaxy hosts young star clusters and star-forming regions like amber-like clumps suspended in space, blooming 4.5 million light-years away in the constellation Sextans. As a sentinel on the Local Group’s fringe, it stands distant from the galactic family including the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.

HH 24: The Cosmic 'Lightsaber' Jet from a Newborn Star in Orion

HH 24: The Cosmic 'Lightsaber' Jet from a Newborn Star in Orion

Resembling a double-bladed lightsaber, this stunning Hubble Space Telescope image captures Herbig-Haro 24 (HH 24)—a half-light-year-wide jet erupting from a newborn star in the Orion B molecular cloud complex, ~1,300 light-years (400 parsecs) from Earth. HH 24 exemplifies the violent beauty of star birth, where invisible forces carve luminous pathways through interstellar space.

The Milky Way’s Most Beautiful Portrait: A 17-Hour Exposé of Cosmic Splendor

The Milky Way’s Most Beautiful Portrait: A 17-Hour Exposé of Cosmic Splendor

Stargazers and astrophotographers alike hail this deep-sky masterpiece as the Milky Way’s most stunning portrait. The image anchors viewers with a diagonally streaming galactic band in the lower-left, intersecting the vibrant Rho Ophiuchi Nebula at its center. Above, the dazzling red nebula of Zeta Ophiuchi floats like a cosmic flame, creating a triad of celestial wonders.

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