Month: December 2019

The Magnetic Fields of Spiral Galaxy M77

Can magnetic fields help tell us how spiral galaxies form and evolve? To find out, the HAWC+ instrument on NASA’s airborne (747) SOFIA observatory observed nearby spiral galaxy M77. HAWC+ maps magnetism by observing polarized infrared light emitted by elongated...

/ December 16, 2019

Mammatus Clouds over Nebraska

When do cloud bottoms appear like bubbles? Normally, cloud bottoms are flat. This is because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a specific temperature, which usually corresponds to a very specific height. As...

/ December 15, 2019

Interstellar Comet 2I Borisov

From somewhere else in the Milky Way galaxy, Comet 2I/Borisov is just visiting the Solar System. Discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30, 2019, the first known interstellar comet is captured in these two recent Hubble Space...

/ December 14, 2019

Full Moon Geminids

The dependable annual Geminid meteor shower will be near its peak tonight (December 13/14) and before tomorrow’s dawn. As Earth crosses through the dusty trail of active asteroid 3200 Phaethon the meteors will flash through the sky from the shower’s...

/ December 13, 2019

Decorating the Sky

Bright stars, clouds of dust and glowing nebulae decorate this cosmic scene, a skyscape just north of Orion’s belt. Close to the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the wide field view spans about 5.5 degrees. Striking bluish M78, a...

/ December 12, 2019

N63A: Supernova Remnant in Visible and X-ray

What has this supernova left behind? As little as 2,000 years ago, light from a massive stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) first reached planet Earth. The LMC is a close galactic neighbor of our Milky Way Galaxy...

/ December 11, 2019

Looking Sideways from the Parker Solar Probe

Everybody sees the Sun. Nobody’s been there. Starting in 2018 though, NASA launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions near to the Sun for the first time. The PSP’s looping orbit brings it yet closer to the...

/ December 9, 2019

Geminid Meteors over Chile

Are meteors streaming out from a point in the sky? Yes, in a way. When the Earth crosses a stream of Sun-orbiting meteors, these meteors appear to come from the direction of the stream — with the directional point called...

/ December 8, 2019

Lines of Time

In time stars trace lines through the night sky on a rotating planet. Taken over two hours or more, these digitally added consecutive exposures were made with a camera and wide angle lens fixed to a tripod near Orel farm,...

/ December 7, 2019

Pleiades to Hyades

This cosmic vista stretches almost 20 degrees from top to bottom, across the dusty constellation Taurus. It begins at the Pleiades and ends at the Hyades, two star clusters recognized since antiquity in Earth‘s night sky. At top, the compact...

/ December 6, 2019