Month: December 2015
A Force from Empty Space: The Casimir Effect
This image denotes a ball that is moving even though there are no visible forces acting upon it in a vacuum (and if the image seems weird it’s because the ball is only around 1/10th of a millimetre). This small...
Cygnus: Bubble and Crescent
The clouds of gas and dust that you see are remnants of an exploded star. The gas and dust spreads out into the Universe and awaits an opportunity to once again clump together and reform into a new star, planet...
Enceladus: Ringside Water World
Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus poses above the gas giant’s icy rings in this Cassini spacecraft image. The dramatic scene was captured on July 29, while Cassini cruised just below the ring plane, its cameras looking back in a nearly sunward...
Nebulae in Aurigae
Rich in star clusters and nebulae, the ancient constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga) rides high in northern winter night skies. Composed from narrow and broadband filter data and spanning nearly 8 Full Moons (4 degrees) on the sky, this deep...
In the Center of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3521
This huge swirling mass of stars, gas, and dust occurs near the center of a nearby spiral galaxy. Gorgeous spiral NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years distant, toward the constellation Leo. Spanning some 50,000 light-years, its central region...