Category: Image of the Day
Recycling NGC 5291
Following an ancient galaxy-galaxy collision 200 million light-years from Earth, debris from a gas-rich galaxy, NGC 5291, was flung far into intergalactic space. NGC 5291 and the likely interloper, also known as the “Seashell” galaxy, are captured near the center...
Leonids and Friends
Leonid meteors rained down on planet Earth this week, the annual shower of dusty debris from the orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Leonids streak through this composite night skyview from a backyard observatory in southern Ontario. Recorded with camera fixed to...
Centaurus A
What’s the closest active galaxy to planet Earth? That would be Centaurus A, only 11 million light-years distant. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy is also known as NGC 5128. Forged in a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies,...
The Pelican Nebula in Gas Dust and Stars
This is an image of the Pelican Nebula. For those of you that are not aware the Nebular is a collection of dust and particles that have been cast away from former stars that have since died out. This dust...
A Sudden Jet on Comet 67P
There she blows! A dramatic demonstration of how short-lived some comet jets can be was documented in late July by the robotic Rosetta spacecraft orbiting the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The featured animation depicts changes in the rotating comet with...
A Blazing Fireball between the Orion Nebula and Rigel
What’s happening to that meteor? A few days ago, a bright fireball was photographed from the Alps mountain range in Switzerland as it blazed across the sky. The fireball, likely from the Taurids meteor shower, was notable not only for...
Leonids Over Monument Valley
There was a shower over Monument Valley — but not water. Meteors. Next Leonids meteor shower The featured image — actually a composite of six exposures of about 30 seconds each — was taken in 2001, a year when there...
Wright Mons on Pluto
Long shadows are cast by a low Sun across this rugged looking terrain. Captured by New Horizons, the scene is found just south of the southern tip Sputnik Planum, the informally named smooth, bright heart region of Pluto. Centered is...
The Tadpoles of IC 410
This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust below and right of center, the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground...