Steve Gildea Planetary Suite, Circa 1990

The Spanish Dancer and her supernova by strongmanmike2002 on Flickr.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818 from Hubble.

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Two moons of Uranus: Titania and Oberon. Both moons were discovered by William Herschel in 1787.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Comas and Tails of Comets The generally unexpected and sometimes spectacular appearance of comets have triggered the interest of many people throughout history. A bright comet can easily be seen with the naked eye. Comets are usually not discovered until after a coma or tail has formed. Depending on the apparent size of the coma or tail, a comet can be very bright. Some comets have a tail extending more than 45˚ on the sky. The earliest records of comet observations date to ~6000BCE in China. The smaller nucleus (rocky body) of a comet, often only a few kilometres in diameter, is usually hidden from view by the large coma, a cloud of gas and dust roughly 10 to the power of 4-10 to the power of 5 km in diameter and not seen with the naked eye, a large hydrogen coma, between 1 and 10 million km in extent, which surrounds the nucleus and visible gas/dust coma. Two tails are often visible, both in the antisolar direction: a curved yellowish dust tail and a straight ion tail, usually of a blue colour. Comets are usually inert at large heliocentric distances and only develop a coma and tails when they get closer to the sun. When the sublimating gas evolves off the surface of a comet’s nucleus, dust is dragged along. The gas and dust form a comet’s coma and hide the nucleus from view. Most comets are discovered after the coma has formed when they are bright enough to be seen with relatively small telescopes. ~ JM Image Credit More Info: Comets, NASA Coma

Five-dimensional black hole could 'break' general relativity

Cambridge UK (SPX) Feb 19, 2016 Researchers have shown how a bizarrely shaped black hole could cause Einstein’s general theory of relativity, a foundation of modern physics, to break down. However, such an object could only exist in a universe with five or more dimensions. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London, have successfully simulated a black hole shaped like a very thi Full article

Europa Is Even More Earth-Like Than We Suspected

“The cycling of oxygen and hydrogen in Europa’s ocean will be a major driver for Europa’s ocean chemistry and any life there, just as it is on Earth,” lead author Steve Vance of JPL noted in a statement.

Lagoon Cocoon by geckzilla on Flickr.

Image of Messier 81 (M81). Located about 12 million light-years away in the Ursa Major constellation, M81 is among the brightest of the galaxies visible by telescope from Earth.

Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

The best photographs that the Hubble space telescope has ever taken.

1. Sombrero galaxy

2.  V838 Monocerotis

3. Jupiter’s great red spot

4. Carina nebula

5. Interacting galaxies

6. Pillars of creation

7. Cat’s eye nebula

8.  Planetary Nebula NGC 5189

9.  Abell 2744 Frontier Field

(Source)

Timelapse of Europa & Io orbiting Jupiter, shot from Cassini during its flyby of Jupiter