It looks like even the craters on Mercury have heard of Bob Ross! The central peaks of this complex crater have formed in such a way that it resembles a smiling face. This image is oriented so north is toward Continue reading
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers an impressive view of the centre of globular cluster NGC 6362. The image of this spherical collection of stars takes a deeper look at the core of the globular cluster, which contains a high Continue reading
A dust devil the size of a terrestrial tornado towers above the Martian surface in this late springtime afternoon image of Amazonis Planitia. Also captured by the Context Camera on MRO, the length of the shadow indicates that the dust Continue reading
The NASA Mars Odyssey orbiter has resumed duty after switching to a set of redundant equipment, including a main computer, that had not be used since before the spacecraft’s 2001 launch. Odyssey relayed data to Earth late Sunday that it Continue reading
What has happened to Saturn’s moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is unknown, but infrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains Continue reading
Lying about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, the cartwheel shape of this galaxy is the result of a violent galactic collision. A smaller galaxy has passed right through a large disc galaxy and produced shock waves Continue reading
For the first time, an international team of astronomers, led by David Sobral (Leiden Observatory) has applied a single method to track and study galaxies over the past 11 billion years. Using a powerful combination of the Subaru Telescope, the Continue reading
NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot, a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter image data from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Over 20 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Continue reading
In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the Continue reading
Located 43 light-years away in the southern constellation Pictor, the orange-colored dwarf star HD 40307 has previously been found to hold three “super-Earth” exoplanets in close orbit. Now, a team of researchers poring over data from ESO’s HARPS planet-hunting instrument Continue reading