Observatories

An Amazing Anniversary Image from the VLT

May 23, 2013

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter This Saturday will mark 15 years that the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) first opened its eyes on the Universe, and ESO is celebrating its first-light anniversary with a beautiful and intriguing new image of the stellar nursery IC [...]

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Seeing the Red of ‘La Superba,’ a Magnificent Springtime Carbon Star

May 17, 2013

The Universe can be a very gray place. But this week, we’ll look at a fine example of a class of objects that defies this trend. Remove this ad

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Podcast: The Arecibo Observatory

May 11, 2013

The mighty Arecibo Radio Observatory is one of the most powerful radio telescopes ever built – it’s certainly the larger single aperture radio telescope on Earth, nestled into a natural sinkhole in Puerto Rico. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the construction of the observatory with a special episode of Astronomy Cast. Click here to [...]

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An Awesome Annular Eclipse! Images and Videos from Earth and Space

May 10, 2013

A spectacular annular eclipse of the Sun was witnessed across Australia and the southern Pacific region early today. Morning dawned mostly clear across the Australian continent, and those who journeyed out to meet the antumbra of the Moon as the Sun rose across the Great Sandy Desert and the Cape York Peninsula were not disappointed. The [...]

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A New Look at the Horsehead Nebula for Hubble’s 23rd Anniversary

April 19, 2013

Here’s the iconic Horsehead Nebula as we’ve not seen it before. As the Hubble team so poetically puts it, the nebula looks “like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam.” The new image of the Horsehead was photographed in celebration of the 23rd anniversary of the launch of Hubble aboard the space shuttle Discovery, [...]

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