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The North America nebula on the sky can do what the North America continent on Earth cannot — form stars. Specifically, in analogy to the Earth-confined continent, the bright part […]
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What’s that in the sky? Above the city, above most clouds, far in the distance: it’s a comet. Pictured, the impressive tail of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) was imaged from […]
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Why does Comet ATLAS have such colorful tails? Last week Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) passed its closest to the Sun — well inside the orbit of Mercury — and brightened […]
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What would it look like to land on Saturn’s moon Titan? The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe set down on the Solar System’s cloudiest moon in 2005, and a time-lapse […]
Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few […]
M83: The Southern Pinwheel
Beautiful and bright spiral galaxy M83 lies a some twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra. Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust […]
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Does the Moon ever engulf Mars? Yes, but only in the sense that it moves in front, which happens on rare occasions. This happened just yesterday, though, as seen from […]
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Why is Polaris called the North Star? First, Polaris is the nearest bright star toward the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to […]
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Comet ATLAS is really bright now, but also really close to the Sun. Outside the glow of the Sun, Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) would be one of the more remarkable […]
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Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of the largest impact craters on one of Saturn’s smallest round moons. Analysis indicates that a slightly larger impact would […]