Picture This – Astronomy Now

A rare triple active galactic nucleus

14 February 2024 Astronomy Now

This cosmic collision is a coming together of two large spiral galaxies, but if you look carefully you might see two smaller galaxies that are also involved.

Webb space telescope turns its infrared eye on the Crab Nebula and its remnant pulsar

7 November 2023 Astronomy Now

Taking a fresh look at the Crab Nebula, the James Webb Space Telescope provides new insights into the titanic explosion that blew a star apart and left a spinning pulsar in its wake.

Hubble images a glittering, star-studded globular cluster

6 August 2023 Astronomy Now

A star-studded image of a globular cluster near the core of the Milky Way serves as a reminder that the Hubble Space Telescope continues to wow astronomers with its powerful, crystal-clear vision.

Webb observes menagerie of lensed galaxies behind ‘El Gordo’ cluster

2 August 2023 Astronomy Now

Webb peers into a massive galaxy cluster and finds a stunning menagerie of gravitationally lensed background galaxies from earlier epochs, again revealing the power of the telescope’s infrared vision.

JunoCam images and expert ‘citizen-scientist’ processing provides stunning portrait of Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons

1 August 2023 Astronomy Now

A family portrait of Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons shows off the skills of two “citizen scientists” using public domain imagery from NASA’s Juno orbiter.

Hubble probes merging galaxy clusters combining to form powerful gravitational lenses

19 July 2023 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope searches for massive galactic clusters to learn more about gravitational lensing, the distortion and magnification of light from background, more distant bodies caused by a cluster’s enormous gravity.

Webb ‘scientific visualization’ takes viewers back in time at 200 million light years per second

10 July 2023 Astronomy Now

Data from Webb and Hubble combine to take viewers on a video tour from the present all the way back to 390 million years after the Big Bang and a never-before-seen early galaxy.

Hubble provides a stunning view of a tightly packed sea of stars in globular cluster M14

5 July 2023 Astronomy Now

Globular clusters are favorite targets for amateur astronomers, offering tightly-packed swarms of stars visible in even modest telescope. But the Hubble Space Telescope’s view of M14 offers a truly jaw-dropping spectacle.

Webb takes a spectacular infrared look at Saturn and its brilliant rings

30 June 2023 Astronomy Now

The James Webb Space Telescope turns its infrared eye on Saturn to test the observatory’s ability to tease out new details about the planet’s rings and moons. As might be expected by now, researchers were not disappointed.

‘Smiling cat’ nebula blazes with newborn stars and hot, ionised gas

27 June 2023 Astronomy Now

A cluster of young stars at the heart of the “smiling cat” nebula generates torrents of radiation that ionise surrounding gas, creating a vast reddish-orange nebula.