Picture This – Page 13 – Astronomy Now

8 May 2025

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A familiar face-on spiral hosts stars galore and a supermassive black hole

7 September 2020 Astronomy Now

The spiral galaxy M61, mistaken for a comet by Charles Messier in 1779, is an anchor tenant of the Virgo galaxy cluster, a beehive of rapid star birth.

Of supernova remnants and stellar nurseries in the Large Magellanic Cloud

2 September 2020 Astronomy Now

One of the Large Magellanic Cloud’s lesser known regions, NGC 2035, shows off a stellar nursery in vast clouds of gas and dust along side a colourful supernova remnant in this close-up view from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.

Spitzer spies a hot spot of star formation

30 August 2020 Astronomy Now

The star-forming nebula W51 is one of the largest “star factories” in the Milky Way galaxy. Interstellar dust blocks the visible light emitted by the region, but it is revealed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which captures infrared light that can penetrate dust clouds.

Terrible twins

23 August 2020 Astronomy Now

Some galaxies are closer friends than others. While many live their own separate, solitary lives, others stray a little too close to a near neighbour and take their relationship to the next level.

Faint cometary globule comes to life in spectacular VLT image of structure’s gaping maw

21 August 2020 Astronomy Now

Cometary globules have no more to do with comets than planetary nebulae do with planets, but they can form intriguing, isolated structures that provide colourful tapestries of faintly glowing gas and dust.

Shallow lightning and ammonia ‘mushballs’ suggested by data from Juno probe

15 August 2020 William Harwood

Data from NASA’s Juno probe indicates violent electrical storms at higher altitudes than previously thought, storms that generate ammonia-enriched “mushballs” that fall like hail into the atmosphere below.

“Space Butterfly” in Vela offers remarkable view of twin-lobed planetary nebula

7 August 2020 Astronomy Now

ESO’s Very Large Telescope captures a colourful view of an unusual bipolar planetary nebula resembling a vast butterfly stretching up to four light years across in the southern constellation Vela.

As three probes head for Mars, Curiosity nears eighth anniversary on red planet

4 August 2020 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Curiosity rover, nearing its eighth anniversary on Mars, will welcome U.S. and Chinese rovers next February, along with an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates. They will have their work cut out for them matching Curiosity’s achievements.

A nursery for the stars

28 July 2020 Astronomy Now

Sparkling stars set amid dark dust and glowing gas light up the north-western corner of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the star-forming region known as LHA 120-N11.

Hubble snapshot of Saturn shows ‘lord of the rings’ in all its summertime glory

24 July 2020 Astronomy Now

Hubble images Saturn and its spectacular ring system, showing the effects of summertime heating across the planet’s northern hemisphere.

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