21st Century Pinwheel Galaxy
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is almost twice the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy, about 170,000 light-years across! Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away. This multiwavelength view of this large spiral galaxy, is a composite of images recorded by space-based telescopes in the 21st century. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, JPL, Caltech STScI
The light of Alien Super Earth (video)
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was able to detect a super Earth’s direct light for the first time using its sensitive heat-seeking infrared vision. Super Earth‘s are more massive than Earth but lighter than gas giants like Neptune. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Chaos in Orion
Baby stars are creating chaos 1,500 light-years away in the cosmic cloud of the Orion Nebula. Green indicates hydrogen and sulfur gas in the nebula, which is a cocoon of gas and dust. Red and orange indicate carbon-rich molecules.
Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in optical light actually glows brightly in infrared light.
The Growing Tarantula
The star-forming region, 30 Doradus, is one of the largest located close to the Milky Way and is found in the neighboring galaxy, Large Magellanic Cloud. About 2,400 massive stars in the center of 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and powerful winds as they blow off material.
Flat Galaxies
New observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope provide strong evidence that the slender, bulge less galaxies can, like their heftier counterparts, harbor supermassive black holes at their cores.
Spider Web of Stars
Those aren’t insects trapped in a spider’s web — they’re stars in our own Milky Way galaxy, lying between us and another spiral galaxy called IC 342. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captured this picture in infrared light, revealing the galaxy’s bright patterns of dust.
Festival of Galaxies
This view of the Cartwheel galaxy was created by combining images captured by four space telescopes: Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory.
via dailygalaxy
Carbon-Rich Extrasolar Planet Discovered might harbor diamond
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope discovered that the planet has more carbon than oxygen, making it the first carbon-rich planet ever observed.
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