December 31, 2012 NGC 602, an open star cluster in a star-forming cloud Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA) NGC 602 is a young, bright open star cluster surrounded by N90, a star-forming cloud of natal gas and dust of about 90 light-years across, located some 196,000 light-years away [continue reading]

      I’m wishing each and everyone of you a Healthy and Happy New Year!! May all your dreams come true! Anne  

December 30, 2012 The Meathook Galaxy, a distorted galaxy in Volans Image Credit & Copyright: ESO / IDA / Danish 1.5 m telescope / Robert Gendler, Jan-Erik Ovaldsen, Christina Thöne, and Chloé Feron (http://www.robgendlerastropics.com) The Meathook Galaxy (NGC 2442 / 2443) is a distorted barred spiral galaxy of about 110,000 light-years across, located some 56 [continue reading]

December 29, 2012 An Elephant on Mars?! Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona This “elephant” is actually a dried flood of lava over the surface of Elysium Planitia, a huge plain near the equator of Mars, which is the youngest flood-lava province and the second largest volcanic region on Mars, after Tharsis. It’s a classic case [continue reading]

December 28, 2012 G327.1-1.1, a supernova remnant in Norma Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/T.Temim et al. and ESA/XMM-Newton; Radio: SIFA/MOST and CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA; Infrared: UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF/2MASS G327.1-1.1 is a supernova remnant of about 211 light years-across, located in our Milky Way galaxy, some 29,000 light-years away in the small southern constellation of Norma. The age of the remnant [continue reading]

  Very sensitive, wide-field observations with a worldwide network of radio telescopes have uncovered supermassive black holes residing in the center of dust obscured galaxies. In some cases, the amount of dust is so large that even x-rays from the accreting black holes are absorbed in these systems. This is the result of research done by astronomers [continue reading]