We live in a galaxy – a star city with several hundred billion residents. Moreover, we know our Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with prominent arms of bright young stars that spiral outwards from a central bar that is dominated by old stars. These arms are so prominent as Read more…
It is widely accepted that our Solar System was created about 4.6 billion years ago based on dating of meteorites. Scientists believe the Solar System formed when a cloud of dust was disrupted by the shockwave from the explosive death of a nearby star initiating its collapse into a stellar Read more…
Peer deep into the constellation Sagittarius and you will find a spectacular young star cluster and its associated stellar nursery. These are M8 and the Lagoon Nebula. More than 4300 light years (1320 parsecs) from the Solar System, this is an active star-forming region. Billions of years ago our Read more…
The December skies mark my favourite time of the year for stargazing. Despite the cold weather, the skies promise the best opportunities to see what lies beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. So pour yourself a hot chocolate, wrap up in warm clothes and head outside to witness the night sky’s wonders. Read more…
Looming large in the after dark southern sky in July is the large and overlapping but often overlooked constellations of Ophiuchus and Serpens. Lacking outstandingly bright stars these “two for one” constellations still contain much of interest. Ophiuchus is one of the thirteen constellations that cross the ecliptic, making Read more…
A new image from the European southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) telescope reveals the glowing clouds of gas and filaments of dust surrounding hot young stars in the stellar nursery known as NGC 6357. Infrared observations like this can reveal features that cannot be seen Read more…
Our Image of the Month was released to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and is a striking panoramic look at a stellar nursery which is fizzing and crackling with energy as it pops out thousands of new stars. The small southern hemisphere constellation Dorado Read more…
We are looking far from home in this pretty image of an open cluster of young stars, sparkling like jewels. They and their associated gas cloud are known as NGC 346 and are located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy which is more than 210 000 light years Read more…
Beautiful colour images of nebulae grace astronomy books and websites and have spread to mainstream culture. They are now familar to the public but what are these gaudy celestial spectacles? So what is a nebula? Nebula is latin for ‘cloud’ so it is the word astronomers use to call Read more…
If you look towards the west just after sunset this February you will see a very bright star in the darkening sky. Known as the Evening Star, brilliant Venus steals the celestial show. After the Moon, Venus is the next brightest object in the sky. Higher in the heavens and Read more…
A new image of the Omega Nebula reveals amazing detail in a cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars. Captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory, this is one of the sharpest views of this stellar birthplace ever taken from Earth’s surface. Read more…
Studying galaxies and clusters in many wavelengths of light tells astronomers more than a single image ever could. Imaged with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, NGC 4666 lies some 80 million light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. All looks calm and peaceful, Read more…
A clear night sky is a thing of beauty and wonder. Thousands of scattered stars twinkle in the darkness. What are the stars? How do they live and die? Could an exploding star cause disaster on Earth? Over the past century or so astronomers have by observation and calculation established Read more…
Lying more than 4000 light years from our Solar System, the Lagoon Nebula (M8) is a place where new stars are forming. Researchers at the multinational Gemini South telescope are uncovering its secrets. This dazzling portrait of a section of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) was captured by astronomers Julia Arias Read more…
Gorgeous! Spectacular! Awesome! What else can I say about this stunning Turneresque image of the Lagoon Nebula (M8)? A typical stellar nursery, M8 lies about 4300 light years (1320 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. About a hundred light years (31 parsecs) wide, it is actually several times as Read more…
This fluffy pink blob is the star-forming region LHA-120-N 11 in the Large Magellanic Cloud some 170 000 light years from the Sun. N 11 (occasionally called the Bean Nebula) is about 1000 light years across. Take a moment to think just big that is! What is the source of Read more…
Imagine that once the Sun sets, rather than a dark sky sprinkled with a few thousand dim stars, we had a sky blazing with ten thousand or so stars blazing brighter than Venus. How different would astronomy, mythology, everyday life be? Planets orbiting stars in the NGC 3603 Young Cluster Read more…
That amazing instrument, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), has just celebrated its twentieth anniversary since it was placed in orbit. Since then, (after a rocky start, remember that dodgy mirror?) it has revolutionised not only what we know about cosmology, star formation, exoplanets and so on, but also how we Read more…
Astronomers in search of really, really big stars look to the Tarantula Nebula. Also known as 30 Doradus (or even NGC 2070), this is a very active star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (about 170 000 light years from us). Just how big are the stars in the Tarantula? Read more…