Michigan Stargazer

What are those strange arcs? While imaging the cluster of galaxies Abell 370, astronomers noticed an unusual arc. The arc wasn’t understood right away — not until better images showed […]

The dark Horsehead Nebula and the glowing Orion Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky’s most recognizable constellations, they appear in opposite […]

What’s happening at the center of spiral galaxy M106? A swirling disk of stars and gas, M106’s appearance is dominated by blue spiral arms and red dust lanes near the […]

What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth’s northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, […]

Are galaxies giant magnets? Yes, but the magnetic fields in galaxies are typically much weaker than on Earth’s surface, as well as more complex and harder to measure. Recently, though, […]

How can the Moon rise through a mountain? It cannot — what was photographed here is a moonrise through the shadow of a large volcano. The volcano is Mauna Kea, […]

Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016 as […]

Interstellar dust clouds and bright nebulae abound in the fertile constellation of Orion. One of the brightest, M78, is near the center in this colorful telescopic view, covering an area […]

Where have all the sunspots gone? Last month the total number of spots that crossed our Sun was … zero. Well below of the long term monthly average, the Sun’s […]

What created these huge galactic superbubbles? Two of these unusual bubbles, each spanning thousands of light-years, were recently discovered near the center of spiral galaxy NGC 3079. The superbubbles, shown […]