Dec 7, 2012
Infrared Orion Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this...
View ArticleDec 8, 2012
Winter Mars Craters The high-resolution stereo camera on ESA’s Mars Express imaged the Charitum Montes region of the Red Planet on 18 June, near to Gale crater and the Argyre basin featured in our...
View ArticleDec 9 , 2012
Star Formation in Carina The spectacular star-forming Carina Nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. This picture was taken with the help of...
View ArticleDec 10, 2012
Lonely Planetary Nebula Located in a relatively vacant region of space about 4200 light-years away and difficult to see using an amateur telescope, the lonesome planetary nebula NGC 7354 is often...
View ArticleDec 11, 2012
Evaporating Rocks on Mercury The bright material on the floor of Kertész crater is not the water ice recently confirmed to be in craters near Mercury's poles, but it might well be behaving as ice would...
View ArticleToutatis Approaches
Toutatis Approaches A sequence taken from Dec. 4 to Dec. 7, showing Toutatis approaching. You can see different faces of the asteroid as it tumbles end over end in its rotation. Image: NASA/JPL
View ArticleToutatis From Earth
Toutatis From Earth A short video sequence showing the bright white dot of Toutatis flying through a field of stars, as seen from a telescope in the Canary Islands on Earth. The film comes from the...
View ArticleFossiliced Ice Cubes
Fossiliced Ice Cubes There’s nothing like a frozen T.Rex fossil floating in a festive cocktail. Unless it’s a Triceratops instead. Available from Fred&Friends, these icy bone trays will transform a...
View ArticleSchrodinger’s Cat Finger Puppet
Schrodinger’s Cat Finger Puppet Everyone needs something feline, quantum and weird for the holidays. Now you see it, now you don’t. Dead? Alive? Hard to say, from far away. Thankfully, the Unemployed...
View ArticleA Thinking Cap
A Thinking Cap It’s too bad we’re too old to sit in classrooms where teachers might say, “Put on your thinking caps!” Because we would definitely wear one of these knit brain caps from AdriannaKnits....
View ArticlePeriodic Beer Glass
Periodic Beer Glass Spelling “Beer” with chemical elements serves several functions. First, it’s a warning to those who may mistake a light-colored ale for something less exciting, and second, it’s a...
View ArticleDec 12, 2012
5 Galaxy Pile-Up A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide colour range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. This portrait of Stephan's...
View ArticleEcospheres
Ecospheres Instead of seeing a world in a grain of sand, how about holding a complete ecosystem in the palm of your hand?Glass enclosed and captivating, the fragility and resilience of ecosystems are...
View ArticleGlobal Warming Mug
Global Warming MugStep 1: Add hot water (or coffee, tea, mulled rum, whatever). Step 2: Watch as the polar ice caps melt, causing a surge in sea level that swallows islands, including Cuba, and the...
View ArticleDec 13, 2012
Giant Star Factory Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed...
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