This spectacular Hubble image shows the Bubble Nebula. The source of this nebula is the star seen toward the upper left side of the bubble. This massive, super-hot star has Keep reading
Tag: astronomy
5 Years of SDO
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is our premiere source for data on the sun. In honor of its five-year anniversary, NASA released this beautiful video compiling some of the highlights Keep reading
Turbulence and Star Formation
Galaxy clusters are objects containing hundreds or thousands of galaxies immersed in hot gas. This gas glows brightly in X-ray, as seen in the Perseus (top) and Virgo (bottom) clusters Keep reading
Supernova Simulation
New research shows that supermassive first-generation stars may explode in supernovae without leaving behind remnants like black holes. The work is a result of modeling the life and death of Keep reading
Saturnian Auroras
Earth is not the only planet in our solar system with auroras. As the solar wind–a stream of rarefied plasma from our sun–blows through the solar system, it interacts with Keep reading
Jupiter Timelapse
This timelapse video shows Jupiter as seen by Voyager 1. In it, each second corresponds to approximately 1 Jupiter day, or 10 Earth hours. Be sure to fullscreen it so Keep reading
Shrinking Red Spot
Observations show Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is shrinking, most recently at a rate of more than 900 km a year. As it gets smaller, the storm is also changing Keep reading
Supernova Core Collapse
A core-collapse, or Type II, supernova occurs in massive stars when they can no longer sustain fusion. For most of their lives, stars produce energy by fusing hydrogen into helium. Keep reading
Protostellar Jets
As young stars form, they often produce narrow high-speed jets from their poles. By astronomical standards, these fountains are dense, narrowly collimated, and quickly changing. The jets have been measured Keep reading
Solar Wind
Fluid dynamics appear at all kinds of scales. The animation above shows two comets, Encke and ISON, on their recent approach toward the sun. The darker wisps emanating from the Keep reading