Fix your camera to a tripod and you can record graceful
trails
traced by the stars as planet Earth
rotates on its axis.

If the tripod is set up at ESO's
La
Silla Observatory, high in the
Atacama desert
of Chile, your star trails would look
something like this.

Spanning about 4 hours on the night of January 24,
the image is
actually a composite of 250 consecutive 1-minute exposures,
looking toward the north.

The North Celestial Pole,
at the center of the star trail
arcs, is just below the horizon in this southern hemisphere perspective.

In the foreground, the polished 15-meter diameter dish antenna of the
Swedish-ESO Submillimeter Telescope
(now decommissioned)
shows star trails toward the south by reflection.

Sweeping around the South Celestial Pole,
the distorted arcs of those stars appear underneath the
southern horizon in the focusing dish's inverted view.

Right of the dish is the dome of the observatory's 3.6 meter
telescope, home to the planet hunting
HARPS spectrograph.

Read the full story:
La Silla Star Trails North and South

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Why would the sky glow red?

Aurora.

Last week's solar storms, emanating mostly from active
sunspot region 1402,
showered particles on the Earth that excited oxygen atoms high in the Earth's atmosphere.

As the excited element's electrons fell back to their ground state, they emitted a
red glow.

Were oxygen atoms lower in Earth's atmosphere excited,
the glow
would be predominantly green.

Pictured above, this high red aurora is visible just above the horizon last week near
Flinders,
Victoria,
Australia.

The sky that night, however, also glowed with more familiar but more distant objects, including the central disk of our Milky Way Galaxy on the left, and the neighboring
Large and
Small Magellanic Cloud galaxies on the right.

A time-lapse video
highlighting
auroras visible that night puts the picturesque scene in context.

Why the sky did not
also glow green remains unknown.

Read the full story:
Red Aurora Over Australia

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Will our
Sun
look like this one day?

The Helix Nebula is one of brightest and closest examples of a
planetary nebula, a gas
cloud created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star.

The outer gasses of the star
expelled into space appear from our
vantage point as if we are looking down a helix.

The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so
energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce.

The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of
NGC 7293,
lies about 700 light-years away towards the
constellation of the Water Bearer (Aquarius)
and spans about 2.5 light-years.

The above picture was taken three colors on infrared light
by the 4.1-meter
Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA)
at the
European Southern Observatory's
Paranal Observatory in
Chile.

A close-up of the
inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of
unknown origin.

Read the full story:
The Helix Nebula from the VISTA Telescope

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Behold one of the more detailed images of the Earth yet created.

This
Blue Marble Earth montage shown above --
created from photographs taken by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on board the new
Suomi NPP satellite -- shows many stunning details of our home planet.

The
Suomi NPP satellite was
launched last October and renamed last week after
Verner Suomi, commonly deemed the father of
satellite meteorology.

The composite was created from the data collected during four orbits of the robotic satellite taken earlier this month and
digitally projected onto the globe.

Many features of
North America and the
Western Hemisphere are particularly visible on a
high resolution version of the image.

Previously, several other
Blue Marble Earth images have been created, some at
even higher resolution.

Read the full story:
Blue Marble Earth from Suomi NPP

suomi npp

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Where did all the stars go?

What used to be considered a hole in the sky
is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud.

Here, a high concentration of
dust and
molecular gas
absorb practically all the visible light
emitted from background stars.

The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors of
molecular clouds some of the coldest
and most
isolated places in the universe.

One of the most notable of these

dark absorption nebulae
is a cloud toward the constellation
Ophiuchus known as
Barnard 68,
pictured above.

That no stars are visible in the center indicates that
Barnard
68 is relatively nearby, with measurements placing it about
500 light-years away and half a light-year across.

It is not known exactly how
molecular clouds like

Barnard 68 form, but it is known that these clouds are themselves
likely places
for new stars to form.

In fact, Barnard 68 itself has
been found likely to collapse and form a new star system.

It is possible to
look right through the cloud in infrared light.

Read the full story:
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68

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Illuminated by an eerie greenish light, this
remarkable little planet is covered with ice and snow
and ringed by tall pine trees.

Of course,
this little planet is actually planet Earth,
and the surrounding stars are above
the horizon
near Östersund, Sweden.

The pale greenish illumination is from a curtain of
shimmering Aurora Borealis
also known as the Northern Lights.

The display was triggered when a giant solar
coronal mass ejection (CME) rocked
planet Earth's
magnetosphere on January 24th
and produced a strong geomagnetic storm.

Northern hemisphere skygazers will also recognize
the familiar orientation
of stars at the left, including the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters
and the stars of Orion.

Increasing solar activity has caused
recent auroral displays to be wide spread, including
Aurora Australis, the Southern
Lights, at high southern latitudes.

Read the full story:
Planet Aurora Borealis

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About 40,000 light-years across, pretty, irregular galaxy
NGC 3239 lies near the center of
this
lovely field of galaxies
in the galaxy rich constellation Leo.

At a distance of only 25 million light-years it dominates
the frame, sporting a
peculiar
arrangement of structures, young blue star clusters and star
forming regions, suggesting that NGC 3239 (aka
Arp 263) is the result of a
galaxy merger.

Appearing nearly on top of the pretty galaxy is a bright,
spiky, foreground star,
a nearby member of our own Milky Way galaxy
almost directly along our line-of-sight to NGC 3239.

Still, NGC 3239 is notable for hosting this year's
first confirmed supernova,
designated SN 2012A.

It was discovered
early this month by supernova hunters Bob Moore,
Jack Newton,
and Tim Puckett.

Indicated in
a cropped version
of the wider image,
SN 2012A is just below and right of the bright foreground star.

Of course, based on the
light-travel time to NGC 3239, the
supernova explosion
itself occurred 25 million years ago,
triggered by the core collapse of a
massive star.

Read the full story:
NGC 3239 and SN 2012A

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A mere 12.5 million light-years from Earth, irregular
dwarf galaxy NGC 4449
lies within the confines of
Canes
Venatici, the constellation of the Hunting Dogs.

About the size of our Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic
Cloud, NGC 4449 is undergoing an intense episode of star formation,
evidenced by its wealth of young blue star clusters, pinkish star forming
regions, and obscuring dust clouds in
this
deep color portrait.

It's also holds the distinction of being the first
dwarf
galaxy with
an identified tidal star stream, faintly seen at the lower right.

Placing your cursor over the image reveals an inset of the
stream resolved into red giant stars.

The star stream represents
the remains of a still smaller
infalling satellite galaxy, disrupted by gravitational forces and
destined to merge with NGC 4449.

With relatively few stars, small galaxies
are thought to posses extensive dark matter halos.

But since dark matter interacts gravitationally,
these observations offer a chance to examine
the significant
role of dark matter
in galactic merger events.

The interaction is likely responsible for NGC 4449's burst of star
formation and offers a tantalizing insight into how even
small galaxies are assembled over time.

Read the full story:
NGC 4449: Star Stream for a Dwarf Galaxy

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Where on Mars should you spend the winter?

As winter approached in the southern hemisphere of Mars last November, the
Opportunity rover had just this problem -- it needed a place to go.

The reduced amount of sunlight impacting
Opportunity's solar panels combined with the extra power needed to keep equipment warm could drain Opportunity's batteries.

Therefore
Opportunity
was instructed to climb onto the 15 degree incline of Greeley's Haven, shown as the
rocky slope ahead.

The incline increased power input as Opportunity's solar panels now have
greater exposure to sunlight, while also giving the rolling robot some interesting landscape to explore.

Visible in the distance, beyond Greeley Haven, lies expansive
Endeavour Crater, the ancient impact basin that Opportunity will continue exploring as the
Martian winter concludes in a few months, if it survives.

Read the full story:
Opportunity Rover Spots Greeley Haven on Mars

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What's that in the sky?

An aurora.

A large
coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun five days ago,
throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons, protons, and ions
toward the Earth.

Although most of this
cloud passed above the Earth,
some of it impacted our Earth's
magnetosphere
and resulted in
spectacular auroras being seen at high northern latitudes.

Pictured above is a particularly photogenic
auroral corona captured last night above
Grotfjord,
Norway.

To some, this
shimmering green glow of
recombining atmospheric
oxygen
might appear as a large
eagle, but feel free to
share what it looks like to you.

This round of solar activity is not yet over --
a new and even more powerful solar flare occurred
yesterday
that might provide more
amazing aurora as soon as tonight.

Read the full story:
January Aurora Over Norway

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Which attracts your eye more -- the sky or the ground?

On the ground are rocky peaks in
Teide National Park on
Tenerife Island of the
Spanish
Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of
Africa.

The
volcanic landscape features old island summits and
is sometimes used as a testbed for instruments on
future Martian rovers.

The lights of a nearby hotel shine on the far left.

Storm clouds are visible on the horizon, artificially strutted from multiple exposures.

Dividing the sky, across the middle of the above deep image, is the
vertical band of the
Milky Way Galaxy.

The red circle on the right is
Barnard's Loop,
near the center of which are the famous
belt stars of the
constellation Orion.

Soon after the above image was taken, during an evening earlier this year,
storm clouds rolled across, and
indoor locations
began to attract eyes the most.

Read the full story:
Deep Orion Over the Canary Islands

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Believe it or not, this is the North Pole of Saturn.

It is unclear how
an unusual hexagonal cloud system that surrounds
Saturn's north pole was created, keeps its shape, or how long it will last.

Originally discovered during the
Voyager
flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen
anything like it elsewhere in the Solar System.

Although its
infrared glow was visible previously to the
Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn, in 2009 the mysterious
hexagonal vortex became fully illuminated by sunlight for the
first time during the Cassini's visit.

Since then, Cassini has imaged the
rotating hexagon
in visible light enough times to create a
time-lapse
movie.

The pole center was not well imaged and has been excluded.

This movie shows many unexpected cloud motions,
such as waves emanating from the corners of the hexagon.

Planetary scientists are sure to continue to study this most unusual cloud formation for quite some time.

Read the full story:
Saturn's Hexagon Comes to Light

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From solstice to solstice,
this six month long exposure
compresses time
from the 21st of June till the 21st of December, 2011,
into a single point of view.

Dubbed a solargraph,
the unconventional picture was recorded with
a pinhole camera made from
a drink can lined with a piece of photographic paper.

Fixed to
a single spot for the entire exposure,
the simple camera continuously
records the Sun's path each day as a glowing trail
burned into the photosensitive paper.

In this case, the spot was chosen to look out
over the domes and radio telescope of
the University of Hertfordshire's
Bayfordbury
Observatory.

Dark gaps in the daily arcs are caused by cloud cover,
whereas continuous bright tracks record glorious spells of sunny weather.

Of course, in June, the Sun trails begin higher
at the northern hemisphere's summer solstice.

The trails sink lower in the sky as December's
winter solstice approaches.

Last year's autumn was one of the balmiest on record in the UK,
as the many bright arcs in the lower part of this picture
testify.

Read the full story:
Days in the Sun

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Begirt with many a blazing star,
Orion, the Hunter,
is one of the most easily
recognizable
constellations.

In this
night
skyscape from January 15,
the hunter's stars rise in the northern hemisphere's winter sky,
framed by bare trees and bounded below by terrestrial lights
around Lough Eske (Lake of Fish) in County Donegal, Ireland.

Red giant star Betelgeuse
is striking in yellowish hues at
Orion's shoulder above and left of center.

Rivaling the bright red giant,
Rigel,
a blue supergiant star holds
the opposing position near Orion's foot.

Of course, the sword
of Orion hangs from the hunter's
three belt stars near picture center, but the middle star in the sword is
not a star at all.

A slightly fuzzy pinkish glow hints at its true nature,
a nearby stellar nursery visible to the unaided eye
known as the Orion Nebula.

Read the full story:
The Hunter's Stars

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How do stars form?

To help study this complex issue, astronomers took a deep
infrared
image of
Cygnus X,
the largest known star forming region in the entire
Milky Way Galaxy.

The
above recently-released image was taken in 2009 by the orbiting
Spitzer Space Telescope and digitally translated into
colors humans can see,
with the hottest regions colored the most blue.

Visible are large bubbles of hot gas inflated by the
winds of massive stars soon after they form.

Current models posit that these expanding
bubbles sweep up gas and sometimes even collide, frequently creating regions dense enough to gravitationally collapse into yet more stars.

The star factory
Cygnus-X spans over 600 light years, contains over a million times the mass of our Sun, and shines prominently on wide angle
infrared panoramas of the night sky.

Cygnus X lies 4,500 light years away towards the
constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).

In a few million years,
calm will likely be restored and a large
open cluster of stars will remain --
which itself will disperse over the next 100 million years.

Read the full story:
Cygnus-X: The Inner Workings of a Nearby Star Factory

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Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe
Macbeth should have
consulted the Witch Head Nebula.

This suggestively shaped
reflection nebula
is associated with the
bright star Rigel in the
constellation Orion.

More formally known as
IC 2118,
the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by
light reflected from bright
star Rigel, located just below the lower edge of the above image.

Fine dust
in the nebula reflects the light.
The blue color is caused not only by
Rigel's blue color but because the
dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red.

The same
physical process causes
Earth's daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in
Earth's atmosphere are molecules of
nitrogen and
oxygen.

The nebula lies about 1000 light-years away.

Read the full story:
IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula

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Is it dawn or false dawn?

During certain times of the year, the horizon near the
rising Sun will begin to glow unusually early.

This early glow does not originate directly from the Sun,
but rather from sunlight reflected by
interplanetary dust.

Called
zodiacal light,
the
glowing triangle of light may be mistaken, for a while, for a sunrise, and so may be called a false dawn.

Pictured above, two false dawns were recorded in time lapse movies each spanning about five hours from the perch of the
highest observatory in the world: Mount Saraswati near
Hanle,
India.

At its brightest, the rising
zodiacal triangle on the left glows brighter than even the central disk of our Milky Way Galaxy --
visible as the diagonal
band moving left to right across the frame.

Read the full story:
Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn

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Cosmic dust clouds ripple across
this infrared portrait
of our Milky Way's
satellite
galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

In fact, the remarkable composite image from the
Herschel
Space Observatory and the
Spitzer Space Telescope
show that dust clouds fill this neighboring dwarf galaxy, much like
dust along the plane of the Milky Way itself.

The dust temperatures
tend to trace star forming activity.

Spitzer data in blue hues indicate warm dust heated
by young stars.

Herschel's instruments contributed the image data shown in red and
green, revealing dust emission from cooler and intermediate regions
where star formation is just beginning or has stopped.

Dominated by dust emission, the Large Magellanic Cloud's
infrared appearance is different
from views in optical images.

But this galaxy's well-known
Tarantula Nebula still stands out,
easily seen here as the brightest region to the left of center.

A mere 160,000 light-years distant,
the Large Cloud of Magellan
is about 30,000 light-years across.

Read the full story:
Infrared Portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud

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This pretty planetary nebula, cataloged as
NGC 6369, was discovered
by 18th century astronomer
William
Herschel as he used a
telescope to explore the medicinal constellation
Ophiucus.

Round and planet-shaped, the nebula
is also relatively faint
and has acquired the popular moniker of
Little Ghost Nebula.

Planetary
nebulae in general are
not at all related to planets,
but instead are created at the end of a sun-like star's life as its
outer layers expand
into space while the star's core shrinks to become
a white dwarf.

The transformed white dwarf star,
seen near the center,
radiates strongly at ultraviolet wavelengths and powers the expanding
nebula's glow.

Surprisingly complex
details
and structures of NGC 6369 are revealed in
this
tantalizing image
composed from Hubble Space Telescope data.

The nebula's main ring structure is about a light-year across and
the glow from ionized oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms
are colored blue, green, and red respectively.

Over 2,000 light-years away, the
Little Ghost Nebula offers a glimpse
of the fate of our Sun, which could produce its own planetary
nebula only about 5 billion years from now.

Read the full story:
NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula

medicinal constellation

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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 some dark form of
carbon.

Iapetus also has an unusual
equatorial ridge
that makes it appear like a walnut.

To help better understand this seemingly painted moon,
NASA
directed the
robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn to swoop
within 2,000 kilometers in 2007.

Pictured above,
from about 75,000 kilometers out, Cassini's trajectory allowed unprecedented imaging of the hemisphere of Iapetus that is
always trailing.

A huge impact crater seen in the south spans a tremendous 450 kilometers
and appears superposed on an
older crater of similar size.

The dark material
is seen increasingly coating the easternmost part of
Iapetus, darkening craters and highlands alike.

Close inspection indicates that the dark coating typically faces the moon's equator and is less than a meter thick.

A leading hypothesis is that the dark material is mostly
dirt leftover when relatively warm but dirty ice
sublimates.

An initial coating of
dark material may have been effectively painted on by the accretion of meteor-liberated debris from other moons.

This and other images from Cassini's
Iapetus flyby are being studied for even greater clues.

Read the full story:
Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon

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