Latest Herschel 400 Catalogue Stories
Unicorns and roses are usually the stuff of fairy tales, but a new cosmic image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) shows the Rosette nebula located within the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn.This flower-shaped nebula, also known by the less romantic name NGC 2237, is a huge star-forming cloud of dust and gas in our Milky Way galaxy. Estimates of the nebula's distance vary from 4,500 to 5,000 light-years away.At the center of the flower is a cluster of young stars...
As part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone project, 100 Hours of Astronomy, the ambitious "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" event is a unique live webcast over 24 hours, following night and day around the globe to some of the most advanced observatories on and off the planet. To provide a long-lasting memory of this amazing world tour, observatories worldwide are revealing wonderful, and previously unseen, astronomical images. For its part, ESO is releasing...
Latest Herschel 400 Catalogue Reference Libraries
Puppis Constellation -- Containing the brightest star visible on earth, the constellation of Canis Major is one of the few constellations in the heavens which resembles what it is supposed to be: a large dog. Its neighbor, Puppis, on the other hand, boasts no bright stars, and is difficult at best for even seasoned observers to identify. Stellar beacons notwithstanding, both of these constellations are rich in open clusters, as they lie along the winter Milky Way. Several...
Open Cluster -- An open cluster is a group of star formed from a molecular cloud, the illuminated parts of which we see as one or more nebulae. They are also called galactic clusters since they exist within the galaxy. All the stars in an open cluster have more or less the same age and the same chemical composition, so any difference between them is solely due to their mass. Most open clusters are dominated by their O-type and B-type giant blue stars, which are very luminous but...
![NASA\](/media/gallery/hubble-space-telescope/thumbs/thumbs_nasashubble.jpg "NASA\")
