Category: Image of the Day
Dust of the Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula is located just south of Orions Belt in the constellation of Orion. The dust that surrounds it is the result of a previous super nova that forcibly sent its elements outwards and now awaits the force of...
Doomed Star Eta Carinae
It would be a wonderful event in our lifetime if Eta Carinae were to go super nova. When a star goes super nova it emits enough energy to be seen during the day even with the Sun shinning bright. Eta...
Southern Craters and Galaxies
The most stunning part of this photograph for me is that it is a familiar site from my childhood. I grew up in Darwin, Northern Territory, and I remember on many camping trips looking up into the stars to see...
A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite
If you told me that the Northern Lights were the only lighting phenomenon on Earth then I would have been in agreement… that was until I realised there were such things as a Red Sprite. Read more about it below (originally...
Star Streams and the Whale Galaxy
NGC 4631 is a spiral galaxy found only 25 million light-years away, toward the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. Seen edge-on, the galaxy is similar in size to the Milky Way. Its distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic...
The Horsehead Nebula
As human beings we always find order within chaos. Give someone a random list of numbers and they will find some kind of order or pattern. It is the same reason why when we look out to other moons, planets...
When Gemini Sends Stars to Paranal
If you’re lucky enough to find yourself on a clear sky tonight somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere then you should forget about work or school tomorrow and head out to watch the peak of activity for he Geminid meteor shower....
Comet Meets Moon and Morning Star
A crescent Moon and brilliant Venus met in predawn skies on December 7, a beautiful conjunction of planet Earth’s two brightest celestial beacons after the Sun. Harder to see but also on the scene was Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10). The...
Comet Catalina Emerges
The Catalina comet is getting closer and closer to us right now and will reach it’s closest point in January. It’s so close at the moment that you can see it in the sky in the morning (from about 5am...
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...