THE FINE POSTER ART DIFFERENCE:: Hubble, NASA, ESA, NOAA, JPL Posters: Zazzle.com Store: http://feed.zazzle.com/z.2/api/find.aspx?cg=196411348154804355&ft=rss&ch=meralee&ou=%2fmeralee%2frss%3fcg%3d196411348154804355en-usWed, 19 Jun 2013 09:44:19 GMT60123160 http://www.zazzle.com/hubbles_sharpest_view_of_the_orion_nebula_60x60_poster-228071128379720066Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:48:46 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble's sharpest view of the Orion Nebula 60x60 Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubbles_sharpest_view_of_the_orion_nebula_60x60_poster-228071128379720066meralee
Hubble's sharpest view of the Orion Nebula 60x60 Posters
by meralee
]]>$40.70
This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.

The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called protoplanetary disks or "proplyds" and are too small to see clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.

The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region being shaped by a massive, young star's ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are resisting erosion from the Trapezium's intense ultraviolet light. The glowing region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars - collide with material.

The faint red stars near the bottom are the myriad brown dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the nebula in visible light. Sometimes called "failed stars," brown dwarfs are cool objects that are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way our Sun does. The dark red column, below, left, shows an illuminated edge of the cavity wall.

The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colours, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon.

The Orion observations were taken between 2004 and 2005.

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team]]>$40.70g http://www.zazzle.com/a_rose_made_of_galaxies_print-228267775151645097Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:39:00 GMT<![CDATA[A Rose Made of Galaxies Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/a_rose_made_of_galaxies_print-228267775151645097meralee
A Rose Made of Galaxies Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
The distorted shape of the larger of the two galaxies shows signs of tidal interactions with the smaller of the two. It is thought that the smaller galaxy has actually passed through the larger one.

Image uploaded in lossless .tif format for best possible image. A 1/4 inch boarder added. If printed at 24x24 inches, will print at a high 335 dpi.

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/solar_system_montage_of_voyager_images_54x36_poster-228174659239697866Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:19:15 GMT<![CDATA[Solar System Montage of Voyager Images 54x36 Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/solar_system_montage_of_voyager_images_54x36_poster-228174659239697866meralee
Solar System Montage of Voyager Images 54x36 Posters
by meralee
]]>$26.30
This montage of images taken by the Voyager spacecraft of the planets and four of Jupiter's moons is set against a false-color Rosette Nebula with Earth's moon in the foreground. Studying and mapping Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and many of their moons, Voyager provided scientists with better images and data than they had ever had before or expected from the program. Although launched sixteen days after Voyager 2, Voyager 1's trajectory was a faster path, arriving at Jupiter in March 1979. Voyager 2 arrived about four months later in July 1979. Both spacecraft were then directed to Saturn with Voyager 1 arriving in November 1980 and Voyager 2 in August 1981. Voyager 2 was then diverted to the remaining gas giants, Uranus in January 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Data collection continues by both Voyager 1 and 2 as the renamed Voyager Interstellar Mission searches for the edge of the solar wind influence (the heliopause) and exits the Solar System. A shortened list of the discoveries of Voyager 1 and 2 include:the discovery of the Uranian and Neptunian magnetospheres (magnetic environments caused by various types of planet cores); the discovery of twenty-two new satellites including three at Jupiter, three at Saturn, ten at Uranus, and six at Neptune; Io was found to have active volcanism (the only other Solar System body than Earth to be confirmed); Triton was found to have active geyser-like structures and an atmosphere; Auroral Zones (where gases become excited after being hit by solar particles) were discovered at Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune; Jupiter was found to have rings; Neptune, originally thought to be too cold to support such atmospheric disturbances, had large-scale storms.

Credit: NASA/JPL

]]>$26.30g http://www.zazzle.com/asian_lights_1999_40x28_print-228710196661096877Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:53:43 GMT<![CDATA[Asian Lights 1999 40x28 Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/asian_lights_1999_40x28_print-228710196661096877meralee
Asian Lights 1999 40x28 Print
by meralee
]]>$26.10$26.10g http://www.zazzle.com/red_spider_nebula_16x20_16x20_poster-228883317760519213Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:38:34 GMT<![CDATA[Red Spider Nebula 16x20 (16x20) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/red_spider_nebula_16x20_16x20_poster-228883317760519213meralee
Red Spider Nebula 16x20 (16x20) Poster
by meralee
]]>$22.40
Huge waves are sculpted in this two-lobed nebula some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbours one of the hottest stars known and its powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometres high. The waves are caused by supersonic shocks, formed when the local gas is compressed and heated in front of the rapidly expanding lobes. The atoms caught in the shock emit the spectacular radiation seen in this image.

Credit: ESA & Garrelt Mellema (Leiden University, the Netherlands)

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/pleiades_star_cluster_18x12_16x11_posters-228434338998712153Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:30:08 GMT<![CDATA[Pleiades Star Cluster 18x12 (16x11) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/pleiades_star_cluster_18x12_16x11_posters-228434338998712153meralee
Pleiades Star Cluster 18x12 (16x11) Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
The brilliant stars seen in this image are members of the popular open star cluster known as the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. The Hubble Space Telescope's Fine Guidance Sensors refined the distance to the Pleiades at about 440 light-years. The Fine Guidance Sensors are at the periphery of Hubble's field-of-view. They trace a circumference that is approximately the angular size of the Moon on the sky. They are overlaid on this image to give a scale to Hubble's very narrow view on the heavens.

Hubble Fine Guidance Sensors measured slight changes in the apparent positions of three stars within the cluster when viewed from different sides of Earth's orbit. Astronomers took their measurements six months apart over a 2 1/2-year period. About 1,000 stars comprise the cluster, located in the constellation Taurus.

The color-composite image of the Pleiades star cluster was taken by the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope. The image is from the second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, and is part of the Digitized Sky Survey. The Pleiades photo was made from three separate images taken in red, green, and blue filters. The separate images were taken between Nov. 5, 1986 and Sept. 11, 1996.

Credit: NASA, ESA and AURA/Caltech

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/pinwheel_galaxy_m101_78x52_57x38_poster-228426802938795619Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:22:58 GMT<![CDATA[Pinwheel Galaxy M101 78x52 (57x38) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/pinwheel_galaxy_m101_78x52_57x38_poster-228426802938795619meralee
Pinwheel Galaxy M101 78x52 (57x38) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.

Credit: European Space Agency &

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/peony_nebula_resized_24x18_30x15_poster-228278877477312207Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:01:48 GMT<![CDATA[Peony Nebula resized 24x18 (30x15) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/peony_nebula_resized_24x18_30x15_poster-228278877477312207meralee
Peony Nebula resized 24x18 (30x15) Poster
by meralee
]]>$23.60
If our galaxy, the Milky Way, were to host its own version of the Olympics, the title for the brightest known star would go to a massive star called Eta Carina. However, a new runner-up -- now the second-brightest star in our galaxy -- has been discovered in the galaxy's dusty and frenzied interior.

Dubbed the 'Peony nebula' star, this blazing ball of gas shines with the equivalent light of 3.2 million suns. The reigning champ, Eta Carina, produces the equivalent of 4.7 million suns worth of light -- though astronomers say these estimates are uncertain, and it's possible that the Peony nebula star could be even brighter than Eta Carina.

If the Peony star is so bright, why doesn't it stand out more in this view? The answer is dust. This star is located in a very dusty region jam packed with stars. In fact, there could be other super bright stars still hidden deep in the stellar crowd. Spitzer's infrared eyes allowed it to pierce the dust and assess the Peony nebula star's true brightness. Likewise, infrared data from the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope in Chile were integral in calculating the Peony nebula star's luminosity.

The Peony nebula, which surrounds the Peony nebular star, is the reddish cloud of dust in and around the white circle.

This is a three-color composite showing infrared observations from two Spitzer instruments. Blue represents 3.6-micron light and green shows light of 8 microns, both captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Red is 24-micron light detected by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ

]]>$23.60g http://www.zazzle.com/peony_nebula_30x15_30x15_posters-228978383513292040Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:39:10 GMT<![CDATA[Peony Nebula 30x15 (30x15) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/peony_nebula_30x15_30x15_posters-228978383513292040meralee
Peony Nebula 30x15 (30x15) Posters
by meralee
]]>$21.05
If our galaxy, the Milky Way, were to host its own version of the Olympics, the title for the brightest known star would go to a massive star called Eta Carina. However, a new runner-up -- now the second-brightest star in our galaxy -- has been discovered in the galaxy's dusty and frenzied interior.

Dubbed the 'Peony nebula' star, this blazing ball of gas shines with the equivalent light of 3.2 million suns. The reigning champ, Eta Carina, produces the equivalent of 4.7 million suns worth of light -- though astronomers say these estimates are uncertain, and it's possible that the Peony nebula star could be even brighter than Eta Carina.

If the Peony star is so bright, why doesn't it stand out more in this view? The answer is dust. This star is located in a very dusty region jam packed with stars. In fact, there could be other super bright stars still hidden deep in the stellar crowd. Spitzer's infrared eyes allowed it to pierce the dust and assess the Peony nebula star's true brightness. Likewise, infrared data from the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope in Chile were integral in calculating the Peony nebula star's luminosity.

The Peony nebula, which surrounds the Peony nebular star, is the reddish cloud of dust in and around the white circle.

This is a three-color composite showing infrared observations from two Spitzer instruments. Blue represents 3.6-micron light and green shows light of 8 microns, both captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Red is 24-micron light detected by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ.

]]>$21.05g http://www.zazzle.com/pelican_nebula_ionization_front_20x30_29x29_poster-228910060837058506Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:09:03 GMT<![CDATA[Pelican Nebula Ionization Front 20x30 (29x29) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/pelican_nebula_ionization_front_20x30_29x29_poster-228910060837058506meralee
Pelican Nebula Ionization Front 20x30 (29x29) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
These images were obtained with the MOSAIC CCD camera at the prime focus of the Mayall 4-meter reflector, and show a 36 arc minute field of view that contains the well known Pelican nebula, located at the northwest rim of the giant HII region W80 (the North America/Pelican Nebula) in Cygnus.

These narrow-band images, obtained in the red light of recombining hydrogen atoms and singly ionized sulfur, reveal a population of hitherto unrecognized shocks which trace outflows from forming stars embedded within the molecular clouds that rim the nebula. The visibility of these protostellar outflows is enhanced by the ultraviolet radiation field of several massive stars located off the image. This radiation is eroding the surrounding molecular cloud. In regions shadowed by dense clumps of gas and dust, parts of the dense and cold molecular cloud survive to produce the long pillars of dusty material. A faint jet (known as Herbig-Haro object 555) squirts out of the tip of one of the pillars, apparently indicating the presence of an unseen protostar.

North is up and west is to the right in this image.

This image was produced by NOAO Survey Program "Deep Imaging Survey of Nearby Star-Forming Clouds", and is the subject of a related press release.

Note: the large “donut” in the middle is an artifact of the coma corrector in the KPNO 4-meter that was not completely removed in the reduction. This is the full size image complete with ragged edges revealing the dither pattern of the different fields.

Credit: John Bally (U. Colorado), Bo Reipurth (U. Hawaii)/NOAO/AURA/NSF

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_resized_24x36_30x30_poster-228396344306505802Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:54:16 GMT<![CDATA[Orion Nebula resized 24x36 (30x30) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_resized_24x36_30x30_poster-228396344306505802meralee
Orion Nebula resized 24x36 (30x30) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula.

This striking infrared and visible-light composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively called the Trapezium. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium's stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Together, the telescopes expose the stars in Orion as a rainbow of dots sprinkled throughout the image. Orange-yellow dots revealed by Spitzer are actually infant stars deeply embedded in a cocoon of dust and gas. Hubble showed less embedded stars as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium's stars.

Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the "Hunter" constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

The Orion constellation is a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. The nebula is invisible to the unaided eye, but can be resolved with binoculars or small telescopes.

This image is a false color composite where light detected at wavelengths of 0.43, 0.50, and 0.53 microns is blue. Light at wavelengths of 0.6, 0.65, and 0.91 microns is green. Light at 3.6 microns is orange, and 8.0 microns is red.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_view_20x20_20x20_posters-228699596795229848Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:46:40 GMT<![CDATA[Orion Nebula View 20x20 (20x20) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_view_20x20_20x20_posters-228699596795229848meralee
Orion Nebula View 20x20 (20x20) Posters
by meralee
]]>$19.70
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula. This striking composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars, collectively called the "Trapezium," at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the Orion constellation, a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium's stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium's stars. Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the "Hunter" constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_detail_18x24_12x16_print-228451311670437687Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:34:47 GMT<![CDATA[Orion Nebula Detail 18x24 (12x16) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_detail_18x24_12x16_print-228451311670437687meralee
Orion Nebula Detail 18x24 (12x16) Print
by meralee
]]>$23.60
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula.

This striking infrared and visible-light composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively called the Trapezium. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium's stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Together, the telescopes expose the stars in Orion as a rainbow of dots sprinkled throughout the image. Orange-yellow dots revealed by Spitzer are actually infant stars deeply embedded in a cocoon of dust and gas. Hubble showed less embedded stars as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium's stars.

Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the "Hunter" constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

The Orion constellation is a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. The nebula is invisible to the unaided eye, but can be resolved with binoculars or small telescopes.

This image is a false color composite where light detected at wavelengths of 0.43, 0.50, and 0.53 microns is blue. Light at wavelengths of 0.6, 0.65, and 0.91 microns is green. Light at 3.6 microns is orange, and 8.0 microns is red.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

]]>$23.60g http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_detail_16x20_16x20_poster-228702132771302825Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:29:32 GMT<![CDATA[Orion Nebula Detail 16x20 (16x20) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_detail_16x20_16x20_poster-228702132771302825meralee
Orion Nebula Detail 16x20 (16x20) Poster
by meralee
]]>$22.40
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula.

This striking infrared and visible-light composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively called the Trapezium. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium's stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Together, the telescopes expose the stars in Orion as a rainbow of dots sprinkled throughout the image. Orange-yellow dots revealed by Spitzer are actually infant stars deeply embedded in a cocoon of dust and gas. Hubble showed less embedded stars as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium's stars.

Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the "Hunter" constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

The Orion constellation is a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. The nebula is invisible to the unaided eye, but can be resolved with binoculars or small telescopes.

This image is a false color composite where light detected at wavelengths of 0.43, 0.50, and 0.53 microns is blue. Light at wavelengths of 0.6, 0.65, and 0.91 microns is green. Light at 3.6 microns is orange, and 8.0 microns is red. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_42x42_30x30_print-228387321370500593Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:23:41 GMT<![CDATA[Orion Nebula 42x42 (30x30) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/orion_nebula_42x42_30x30_print-228387321370500593meralee
Orion Nebula 42x42 (30x30) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula.

This striking infrared and visible-light composite indicates that four monstrously massive stars at the center of the cloud may be the main culprits in the familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively called the Trapezium. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the image.

Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cloud. These organic molecules have been illuminated by the Trapezium's stars, and are shown in the composite as wisps of red and orange. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust.

Together, the telescopes expose the stars in Orion as a rainbow of dots sprinkled throughout the image. Orange-yellow dots revealed by Spitzer are actually infant stars deeply embedded in a cocoon of dust and gas. Hubble showed less embedded stars as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots.

Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion. The large cavity near the right of the image was most likely carved by winds from the Trapezium's stars.

Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion, or the "Hunter" constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers believe it contains more than 1,000 young stars.

The Orion constellation is a familiar sight in the fall and winter night sky in the northern hemisphere. The nebula is invisible to the unaided eye, but can be resolved with binoculars or small telescopes.

This image is a false color composite where light detected at wavelengths of 0.43, 0.50, and 0.53 microns is blue. Light at wavelengths of 0.6, 0.65, and 0.91 microns is green. Light at 3.6 microns is orange, and 8.0 microns is red. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/omega_nebula_16x20_8x10_poster-228190398715969433Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:13:44 GMT<![CDATA[Omega Nebula 16x20 (8x10) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/omega_nebula_16x20_8x10_poster-228190398715969433meralee
Omega Nebula 16x20 (8x10) Poster
by meralee
]]>$22.40
Resembling the fury of a raging sea, this image actually shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulfur.

The photograph, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, captures a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The image is being released to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990.

The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The glow of these patterns accentuates the three-dimensional structure of the gases. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red in this photograph. The intense heat and pressure cause some material to stream away from those surfaces, creating the glowing veil of even hotter greenish gas that masks background structures. The pressure on the tips of the waves may trigger new star formation within them.

The image, roughly 3 light-years across, was taken May 29-30, 1999, with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The colors in the image represent various gases. Red represents sulfur; green, hydrogen; and blue, oxygen.

Object Names: M17, NGC 6618, Swan Nebula, Omega Nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA and J. Hester (ASU)

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/omega_swan_nebula_12x12_13x13_poster-228605996329556505Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:52:22 GMT<![CDATA[Omega (Swan) Nebula 12x12 (13x13) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/omega_swan_nebula_12x12_13x13_poster-228605996329556505meralee
Omega (Swan) Nebula 12x12 (13x13) Poster
by meralee
]]>$19.70
Resembling the fury of a raging sea, this image actually shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulfur.

The photograph, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, captures a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The image is being released to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990.

The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The glow of these patterns accentuates the three-dimensional structure of the gases. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red in this photograph. The intense heat and pressure cause some material to stream away from those surfaces, creating the glowing veil of even hotter greenish gas that masks background structures. The pressure on the tips of the waves may trigger new star formation within them.

The image, roughly 3 light-years across, was taken May 29-30, 1999, with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The colors in the image represent various gases. Red represents sulfur; green, hydrogen; and blue, oxygen.

Object Names: M17, NGC 6618, Swan Nebula, Omega Nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA and J. Hester (ASU)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/north_america_at_night_30x20_24x16_print-228661597025452681Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:41:02 GMT<![CDATA[North America at Night 30x20 (24x16) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/north_america_at_night_30x20_24x16_print-228661597025452681meralee
North America at Night 30x20 (24x16) Print
by meralee
]]>$26.30
This image of Earth's city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth's surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya. Completed: 2004-02-16 Credits: Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC) and Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC). Image by Craig Mayhew (NASA/GSFC) and Robert Simmon (NASA/GSFC).]]>$26.30g http://www.zazzle.com/north_south_pole_region_of_the_moon_24x36_35x52_poster-228709521974683856Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:40:04 GMT<![CDATA[North & South Pole Region of the Moon 24x36 (35x52 Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/north_south_pole_region_of_the_moon_24x36_35x52_poster-228709521974683856meralee
North & South Pole Region of the Moon 24x36 (35x52 Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
North Pole Region of the Moon as Seen by Clementine. Lunar mosaic of ~1500 Clementine images of the north polar region of the moon. The projection is orthographic centered on the north pole. The polar regions of the moon are of special interest because of the postulated occurrence of ice in permanently shadowed areas. The north pole of the moon is absent of the very rugged terrain seen at the south pole (lower image).

Credit: Clementine Team, JPL, NASA.

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/ngc_3324_detail_36x12_36x12_posters-228458823700834158Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:27:12 GMT<![CDATA[NGC 3324 Detail 36x12 (36x12) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/ngc_3324_detail_36x12_36x12_posters-228458823700834158meralee
NGC 3324 Detail 36x12 (36x12) Posters
by meralee
]]>$18.65
Bright young stars sometimes sculpt picturesque dust mountains soon after being born. Created quite by accident, the energetic light and winds from these massive newborn stars burn away accumulations of dark dust and cool gas in a slow but persistent manner. Such is the case in NGC 3324, a star forming region near the edge of NGC 3372, the energetic and expansive Carina Nebula. Pictured above, in scientifically assigned colors, is only a small part of NGC 3324. The Carina Nebula itself is one of the largest star forming regions known and home to Eta Carinae, one of the most unstable and variable stars known. The above image was created from archived Hubble Space Telescope data in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Hubble Heritage Project. The Hubble Heritage Project has created, so far, nearly 130 visually stunning images.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgement: N. Smith et al. (JHU)

]]>$18.65g http://www.zazzle.com/ngc_253_from_the_angst_survey_52x13_52x13_poster-228106926397540929Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:19:48 GMT<![CDATA[NGC 253 from the Angst Survey 52x13 (52x13) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/ngc_253_from_the_angst_survey_52x13_52x13_poster-228106926397540929meralee
NGC 253 from the Angst Survey 52x13 (52x13) Poster
by meralee
]]>$15.95
This dusty island universe is one of the brightest spiral galaxies in the sky. Seen nearly edge-on, NGC 253 lies a mere 13 million light-years away and is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies, neighbor to our own local galaxy group. The remarkably sharp, close-up view is based on data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Beginning on the left near the galaxy's core, the panorama follows filaments of dust, interstellar gas, and even individual stars toward the galaxy's edge at the far right, a magnificent vista spanning nearly 50,000 light-years. The image data are part of ANGST, the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury, a program to explore our cosmic backyard.

Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B. Williams (Univ. Washington) Ground-based data: T. Rector (Univ. Alaska, Anchorage), T. Abbott, NOAO/AURA/NSF

]]>$15.95g http://www.zazzle.com/new_stars_in_ngc_3603_20x30_20x30_poster-228472976322604618Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:10:09 GMT<![CDATA[New Stars in NGC 3603 20x30 (20x30) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/new_stars_in_ngc_3603_20x30_20x30_poster-228472976322604618meralee
New Stars in NGC 3603 20x30 (20x30) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
A mere 20,000 light-years from the Sun lies NGC 3603, a resident of the nearby Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 3603 is well known to astronomers as one of the Milky Way's largest star-forming regions. The central open star cluster contains thousands of stars more massive than our Sun, stars that likely formed only one or two million years ago in a single burst of star formation. In fact, nearby NGC 3603 is thought to contain a convenient example of the massive star clusters that populate much more distant starburst galaxies. Surrounding the cluster are natal clouds of glowing interstellar gas and obscuring dust, sculpted by energetic stellar radiation and winds. Recorded by the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, the image spans about 17 light-years.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/ Hubble Collaboration Acknowledgment: J. Maiz Apellaniz (Inst. Astrofisica Andalucia) et al., & Davide de Martin (skyfactory.org)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/new_stars_in_ngc_3603_16x20_16x20_print-228561521518448079Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:05:36 GMT<![CDATA[New Stars in NGC 3603 16x20 (16x20) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/new_stars_in_ngc_3603_16x20_16x20_print-228561521518448079meralee
New Stars in NGC 3603 16x20 (16x20) Print
by meralee
]]>$22.40
A mere 20,000 light-years from the Sun lies NGC 3603, a resident of the nearby Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 3603 is well known to astronomers as one of the Milky Way's largest star-forming regions. The central open star cluster contains thousands of stars more massive than our Sun, stars that likely formed only one or two million years ago in a single burst of star formation. In fact, nearby NGC 3603 is thought to contain a convenient example of the massive star clusters that populate much more distant starburst galaxies. Surrounding the cluster are natal clouds of glowing interstellar gas and obscuring dust, sculpted by energetic stellar radiation and winds. Recorded by the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, the image spans about 17 light-years.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/ Hubble Collaboration Acknowledgment: J. Maiz Apellaniz (Inst. Astrofisica Andalucia) et al., & Davide de Martin (skyfactory.org)

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/mosaic_of_the_galactic_center_12x18_12x18_print-228513870183414881Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:51:54 GMT<![CDATA[Mosaic of the Galactic Center 12x18 (12x18) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/mosaic_of_the_galactic_center_12x18_12x18_print-228513870183414881meralee
Mosaic of the Galactic Center 12x18 (12x18) Print
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their environment in the often violent nuclear regions of other galaxies.

This view combines the sharp imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with color imagery from a previous Spitzer Space Telescope survey done with its Infrared Astronomy Camera (IRAC). The Galactic core is obscured in visible light by intervening dust clouds, but infrared light penetrates the dust.

The spatial resolution of the NICMOS image corresponds to 0.025 light-years at the distance of the Galactic core of 26,000 light-years. Hubble reveals details in objects as small as 20 times the size of our own solar system.

The NICMOS mosaic image represents the largest piece of sky ever mapped for one NICMOS observing program. It was combined with a full-color Spitzer image to yield a color composite of the nuclear region. The picture measures 300 x 115 light-years. Outside the boundary of the NICMOS survey, the IRAC exposures (which are 1/10th as sharp) can be seen at wavelengths of 3.6 microns (shown as blue), 4.5 microns (shown as green), 5.8 microns (shown as orange), and 8.0 microns (shown as red).

The new NICMOS data show the glow from ionized hydrogen gas as well as a multitude of stars. Hubble reveals an important population of stars with strong stellar winds, signified by excess emission from ionized gas at one infrared wavelength (1.87 microns) compared to another slightly different wavelength (1.90 microns).

NICMOS shows a large number of these massive stars distributed throughout the region. A new finding is that astronomers now see that the massive stars are not confined to one of the three known clusters of massive stars in the Galactic Center, known as the Central cluster, the Arches cluster, and the Quintuplet cluster. These three clusters are easily seen as tight concentrations of bright, massive stars in the NICMOS image. The distributed stars may have formed in isolation, or they may have originated in clusters that have been disrupted by strong gravitational tidal forces.

The winds and radiation from these stars form the complex structures seen in the core, and in some cases, they may be triggering new generations of stars. At upper left, large arcs of ionized gas are resolved into arrays of intriguingly organized linear filaments indicating perhaps a critical role of the influence of locally strong magnetic fields,

The lower left region shows pillars of gas sculpted by winds from hot massive stars in the Quintuplet cluster. At the center of the image, ionized gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is confined to a bright spiral embedded within a circum-nuclear dusty inner-tube-shaped torus.

The NICMOS mosaic required 144 Hubble orbits to make 2,304 science exposures. It was taken between February 22 and June 5, 2008.

Credit for Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Credit for Spitzer image: NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/merging_galaxies_36x24_36x24_print-228008719723443681Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:44:11 GMT<![CDATA[Merging Galaxies 36x24 (36x24) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/merging_galaxies_36x24_36x24_print-228008719723443681meralee
Merging Galaxies 36x24 (36x24) Print
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Fifty-nine new images of colliding galaxies make up the largest collection of Hubble images ever released together. As this astonishing Hubble atlas of interacting galaxies illustrates, galaxy collisions produce a remarkable variety of intricate structures.

Interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, sometimes as dramatic collisions that trigger bursts of star formation, on other occasions as stealthy mergers that result in new galaxies. A series of 59 new images of colliding galaxies has been released from the several terabytes of archived raw images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to mark the 18th anniversary of the telescope's launch. This is the largest collection of Hubble images ever released to the public simultaneously.

Galaxy mergers, which were more common in the early Universe than they are today, are thought to be one of the main driving forces for cosmic evolution, turning on quasars, sparking frenetic star births and explosive stellar deaths. Even apparently isolated galaxies will show signs in their internal structure that they have experienced one or more mergers in their past. Each of the various merging galaxies in this series of images is a snapshot of a different instant in the long interaction process.

Our own Milky Way contains the debris of the many smaller galaxies it has encountered and devoured in the past, and it is currently absorbing the Sagittarius dwarf elliptical galaxy. In turn, it looks as if our Milky Way will be subsumed into its giant neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, resulting in an elliptical galaxy, dubbed "Milkomeda", the new home for the Earth, the Sun and the rest of the Solar System in about two billion years time. The two galaxies are currently rushing towards each other at approximately 500,000 kilometres per hour.

Cutting-edge observations and sophisticated computer models, such as those pioneered by the two Estonian brothers Alar Toomre and Juri Toomre in the 1970s, demonstrate that galaxy collisions are far more common than previously thought. Interactions are slow stately affairs, despite the typically high relative speeds of the interacting galaxies, taking hundreds of millions of years to complete. The interactions usually follow the same progression, and are driven by the tidal pull of gravity. Actual collisions between stars are rare as so much of a galaxy is simply empty space, but as the gravitational webs linking the stars in each galaxy begin to mesh, strong tidal effects disrupt and distort the old patterns leading to new structures, and finally to a new stable configuration.

The pull of the Moon that produces the twice-daily rise and fall of the Earth's oceans illustrates the nature of tidal interactions. Tides between galaxies are much more disruptive than oceanic tides for two main reasons. Firstly, stars in galaxies, unlike the matter that makes up the Earth, are bound together only by the force of gravity. Secondly, galaxies can pass much closer to each other, relative to their size, than do the Earth and the Moon. The billions of stars in each interacting galaxy move individually, following the pull of gravity from all the other stars, so the interwoven tidal forces can produce the most intricate and varied effects as galaxies pass close to each other.

Typically the first tentative sign of an interaction will be a bridge of matter as the first gentle tugs of gravity tease out dust and gas from the approaching galaxies (IC 2810). As the outer reaches of the galaxies begin to intermingle, long streamers of gas and dust, known as tidal tails, stretch out and sweep back to wrap around the cores (NGC 6786, UCG 335, NGC 6050). These long, often spectacular, tidal tails are the signature of an interaction and can persist long after the main action is over. As the galaxy cores approach each other their gas and dust clouds are buffeted and accelerated dramatically by the conflicting pull of matter from all directions (NGC 6621, NGC 5256). These forces can result in shockwaves rippling through the interstellar clouds (ARP 148). Gas and dust are siphoned into the active central regions, fuelling bursts of star formation that appear as characteristic blue knots of young stars (NGC 454). As the clouds of dust build they are heated so that they radiate strongly, becoming some of the brightest (luminous and ultraluminous) infrared objects (APG 220) in the sky.

These objects emit up to several thousand billion times the luminosity of our Sun. They are the most rapidly star-forming galaxies in today's Universe and are linked to the occurrence of quasars. Unlike standard spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, which radiate from stars and hot gas distributed over their entire span of perhaps 100,000 light-years, the energy in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies is primarily generated within their central portion, over an extent of 1000 to 10,000 light-years. This energy emanates both from vigorous star formation processes, which can generate up to a few hundred solar masses of new stars per year (in comparison, the Milky Way generates a few solar masses of new stars per year), and from massive accreting black holes, a million to a billion times the mass of the Sun, in the central region.

Intense star formation regions and high levels of infrared and far-infrared radiation are typical of the most active central period of the interaction and are seen in many of the objects in this release. Other visible signs of an interaction are disruptions to the galaxy nuclei (NGC 3256, NGC 17). This disruption may persist long after the interaction is over, both for the case where a larger galaxy has swallowed a much smaller companion and where two more closely matched galaxies have finally separated.

Most of the 59 new Hubble images are part of a large investigation of luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies called the GOALS project (Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey). This survey combines observations from Hubble, the NASA Spitzer Space Observatory, the NASA Chandra X-Ray Observatory and NASA Galaxy Explorer. The Hubble observations are led by Professor Aaron S. Evans from the University of Virginia and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (USA).

A number of the interacting galaxies seen here are included in The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a remarkable catalogue produced by the astronomer Halton Arp in the mid-1960s that built on work by B.A. Vorontsov-Velyaminov from 1959. Arp compiled the catalogue in a pioneering attempt to solve the mystery of the bizarre shapes of galaxies observed by ground-based telescopes. Today, the peculiar structures seen by Arp and others are well understood as the result of complex gravitational interactions.

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/lyell_panorama_inside_victoria_crater_78x52_77x_poster-228427868511082747Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:35:13 GMT<![CDATA['Lyell' Panorama inside Victoria Crater 78x52 (77x Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/lyell_panorama_inside_victoria_crater_78x52_77x_poster-228427868511082747meralee
'Lyell' Panorama inside Victoria Crater 78x52 (77x Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
During four months prior to the fourth anniversary of its landing on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity examined rocks inside an alcove called "Duck Bay" in the western portion of Victoria Crater. The main body of the crater appears in the upper right of this panorama, with the far side of the crater lying about 800 meters (half a mile) away. Bracketing that part of the view are two promontories on the crater's rim at either side of Duck Bay. They are "Cape Verde," about 6 meters (20 feet) tall, on the left, and "Cabo Frio," about 15 meters (50 feet) tall, on the right. The rest of the image, other than sky and portions of the rover, is ground within Duck Bay.

Opportunity's targets of study during the last quarter of 2007 were rock layers within a band exposed around the interior of the crater, about 6 meters (20 feet) from the rim. Bright rocks within the band are visible in the foreground of the panorama. The rover science team assigned informal names to three subdivisions of the band: "Steno," "Smith," and "Lyell."

This view combines many images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) from the 1,332nd through 1,379th Martian days, or sols, of the mission (Oct. 23 to Dec. 11, 2007). Images taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers, 535 nanometers and 432 nanometers were mixed to produce an approximately true-color panorama. Some visible patterns in dark and light tones are the result of combining frames that were affected by dust on the front sapphire window of the rover's camera.

Opportunity landed on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time, (Jan. 24, Pacific Time) inside a much smaller crater about 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of Victoria Crater, to begin a surface mission designed to last 3 months and drive about 600 meters (0.4 mile).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/lh_95_20x30_18x27_posters-228683542469520866Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:21:46 GMT<![CDATA[LH 95 20x30 (18x27) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/lh_95_20x30_18x27_posters-228683542469520866meralee
LH 95 20x30 (18x27) Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
LH 95 is a bluish nebula of glowing hydrogen expands out into the remains of the molecular cloud that collapsed to form the massive stars in this region. The effect is the result of strong stellar winds and high levels of ultraviolet radiation from the largest stars.

This photo from the Hubble Space Telescope, presented at the 2006 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, shows a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This sharp image reveals a large number of low-mass infant stars coexisting with young massive stars.

Credit: NASA, ESA

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/latin_america_at_night_20x30_17x25_print-228654066820295672Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:14:11 GMT<![CDATA[Latin America at Night 20x30 (17x25) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/latin_america_at_night_20x30_17x25_print-228654066820295672meralee
Latin America at Night 20x30 (17x25) Print
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This image of Earth's city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth's surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya.

Completed: 2004-02-16

Credits: Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC) and Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC). Image by Craig Mayhew (NASA/GSFC) and Robert Simmon (NASA/GSFC).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/large_spiral_galaxy_m81_78x52_75x50_poster-228911796468482319Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:07:48 GMT<![CDATA[Large Spiral Galaxy M81 78x52 (75x50) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/large_spiral_galaxy_m81_78x52_75x50_poster-228911796468482319meralee
Large Spiral Galaxy M81 78x52 (75x50) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
The sharpest image ever taken of the large "grand design" spiral galaxy M81. A spiral-shaped system of stars, dust, and gas clouds, the galaxy's arms wind all the way down into the nucleus. Though the galaxy is located 11.6 million light-years away, the Hubble Space Telescope's view is so sharp that it can resolve individual stars, along with open star clusters, globular star clusters, and even glowing regions of fluorescent gas. The Hubble data was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2004 through 2006. This color composite was assembled from images taken in blue, visible, and infrared light.

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: A. Zezas and J. Huchra (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/large_megellanic_cloud_52x52_44x44_posters-228893159125595834Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:00:52 GMT<![CDATA[Large Megellanic Cloud 52x52 (44x44) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/large_megellanic_cloud_52x52_44x44_posters-228893159125595834meralee
Large Megellanic Cloud 52x52 (44x44) Posters
by meralee
]]>$19.70
This vibrant image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy.

The infrared image, a mosaic of 300,000 individual tiles, offers astronomers a unique chance to study the lifecycle of stars and dust in a single galaxy. Nearly one million objects are revealed for the first time in this Spitzer view, which represents about a 1,000-fold improvement in sensitivity over previous space-based missions. Most of the new objects are dusty stars of various ages populating the Large Magellanic Cloud; the rest are thought to be background galaxies.

The blue color in the picture, seen most prominently in the central bar, represents starlight from older stars. The chaotic, bright regions outside this bar are filled with hot, massive stars buried in thick blankets of dust. The red color around these bright regions is from dust heated by stars, while the red dots scattered throughout the picture are either dusty, old stars or more distant galaxies. The greenish clouds contain cooler interstellar gas and molecular-sized dust grains illuminated by ambient starlight.

Astronomers say this image allows them to quantify the process by which space dust -- the same stuff that makes up planets and even people -- is recycled in a galaxy. The picture shows dust at its three main cosmic hangouts: around the young stars, where it is being consumed (red-tinted, bright clouds); scattered about in the space between stars (greenish clouds); and in expelled shells of material from old stars (randomly-spaced red dots).

The Large Magellanic Cloud, located 160,000 light-years from Earth, is one of a handful of dwarf galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way. It is approximately one-third as wide as the Milky Way, and, if it could be seen in its entirety, would cover the same amount of sky as a grid of about 480 full moons. About one-third of the entire galaxy can be seen in the Spitzer image.

This picture is a composite of infrared light captured by Spitzer. Light with wavelengths of 3.6 (blue) and 8 (green) microns was captured by the telescope's infrared array camera; 24-micron light (red) was detected by the multiband imaging photometer.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/keyhole_nebula_20x30_20x30_poster-228749637222326503Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:52:32 GMT<![CDATA[Keyhole Nebula 20x30 (20x30) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/keyhole_nebula_20x30_20x30_poster-228749637222326503meralee
Keyhole Nebula 20x30 (20x30) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the 'Keyhole Nebula,' obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which used six different color filters. The picture is dominated by a large, approximately circular feature, which is part of the Keyhole Nebula, named in the 19th century by Sir John Herschel. This region, about 8000 light-years from Earth, is located adjacent to the famous explosive variable star Eta Carinae, which lies just outside the field of view toward the upper right. The Carina Nebula also contains several other stars that are among the hottest and most massive known, each about 10 times as hot, and 100 times as massive, as our Sun.

Credit: NASA/ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_24x24_24x24_poster-228297355662288626Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:44:34 GMT<![CDATA[Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 24x24 (24x24) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_24x24_24x24_poster-228297355662288626meralee
Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 24x24 (24x24) Poster
by meralee
]]>$19.70
This gas pillar in the Carina Nebula WFC3 UVIS contain hot, young stars which are generating huge amounts of energy and illuminating the entire gas cloud. Infra red studies have show numerous other new stars being born within this cloud and you can see the jets of dispelled material emanating from all sides of the nebula.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_20x30_18x24_poster-228037307498130812Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:41:06 GMT<![CDATA[Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 20x30 (18x24) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_20x30_18x24_poster-228037307498130812meralee
Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 20x30 (18x24) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This gas pillar in the Carina Nebula WFC3 UVIS contain hot, young stars which are generating huge amounts of energy and illuminating the entire gas cloud. Infra red studies have show numerous other new stars being born within this cloud and you can see the jets of dispelled material emanating from all sides of the nebula.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_18x24_18x24_poster-228404482749605307Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:36:50 GMT<![CDATA[Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 18x24 (18x24) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/jet_in_carina_wfc3_uvis_18x24_18x24_poster-228404482749605307meralee
Jet in Carina WFC3 UVIS 18x24 (18x24) Poster
by meralee
]]>$23.60
This gas pillar in the Carina Nebula WFC3 UVIS contain hot, young stars which are generating huge amounts of energy and illuminating the entire gas cloud. Infra red studies have show numerous other new stars being born within this cloud and you can see the jets of dispelled material emanating from all sides of the nebula.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble

]]>$23.60g http://www.zazzle.com/infant_stars_12x12_16x16_posters-228436494746035535Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:26:29 GMT<![CDATA[Infant Stars 12x12 (16x16) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/infant_stars_12x12_16x16_posters-228436494746035535meralee
Infant Stars 12x12 (16x16) Posters
by meralee
]]>$19.70
The exquisite sharpness of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has plucked out an underlying population of infant stars embedded in the nebula NGC 346 that are still forming from gravitationally collapsing gas clouds. They have not yet ignited their hydrogen fuel to sustain nuclear fusion. The smallest of these infant stars is only half the mass of our Sun.

Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/ic_4406_16x20_16x20_poster-228593808318840906Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:18:00 GMT<![CDATA[IC 4406 16x20 (16x20) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/ic_4406_16x20_16x20_poster-228593808318840906meralee
IC 4406 16x20 (16x20) Poster
by meralee
]]>$22.40
IC 4406 is a planetary nebula with an unusual, almost "rectangular" shape. It is located in the southern constellation Lupus (the Wolf). The distance is somewhat uncertain, possibly around 5,000 light-years.

Like the Butterfly Nebula, IC 4406 belongs to the class of bipolar nebulae. However, the dark and dusty central band (the "disc-like structure") is less pronounced in this object and the internal structure is more uniform. The different colors correspond to regions of different composition and physical properties.

The photo is based on a series of seven exposures through three broad-band optical filters, obtained under less optimal observing conditions during a small break in the technical work. They have been combined to produce the present photo. The use of these wide filters also tends to suppress the fine structure that is particularly well visible in narrow-filter exposures because of the line emission from the nebula.

Credit: European Southern Observatory

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_weighs_in_on_heaviest_stars_16x20_13x16_poster-228060976082258436Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:39:58 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Weighs in on Heaviest Stars 16x20 (13x16) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_weighs_in_on_heaviest_stars_16x20_13x16_poster-228060976082258436meralee
Hubble Weighs in on Heaviest Stars 16x20 (13x16) Posters
by meralee
]]>$22.40
This artist's impression shows how the Arches star cluster appears from deep inside the hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. Although hidden from our direct view, the massive cluster lies 25,000 light-years away and is the densest known gathering of young stars in our galaxy. The illustration is based on infrared observations with Hubble and with ground-based telescopes, which pierced our galaxy's dusty core and snapped images of the luminous cluster of about 2,000 stars.

Some of the brightest blue stars in this illustration are among the most massive stars astronomers found with the Hubble telescope, weighing about 130 times more than our Sun. The cluster is so young, about 2 to 2.5 million years old, that Hubble caught them before they exploded as supernovae. The cluster's massive stars are illuminating a wall of a giant hydrogen cloud [the reddish-purple filamentary structure along the right edge]. Large clouds like this one make hefty clusters like the Arches. The bright reddish object at upper right is the center of our galaxy, residing 100 light-years away from the Arches cluster. The glowing purple thread-like objects at lower left and the purple arcs at upper right are high-energy particles caught up in strong magnetic fields. Astronomers do not know the origin of these fields.

Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Schaller (for STScI)

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_space_telescope_20x30_21x31_poster-228851348792124428Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:29:12 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Space Telescope 20x30 (21x31) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_space_telescope_20x30_21x31_poster-228851348792124428meralee
Hubble Space Telescope 20x30 (21x31) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Named after the trailblazing astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a large, space-based observatory which has revolutionized astronomy by providing unprecedented deep and clear views of the Universe, ranging from our own solar system to extremely remote fledgling galaxies forming not long after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever (05.29.2009)Take one space shuttle, seven highly trained astronauts, tons of equipment, and one legendary orbiting telescope and you have the 5.3 million-mile odyssey that was Hubble's final servicing mission (SM4). Launched in 1990 and greatly extended in its scientific powers through new instrumentation installed during four servicing missions with the Space Shuttle, the Hubble, in its eighteen years of operations, has validated Lyman Spitzer Jr.'s (1914-1997) original concept of a diversely instrumented observatory orbiting far above the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere and returning data of unique scientific value.

Hubble's coverage of light of different colors (its "spectral range") extends from the ultraviolet, through the visible (to which our eyes are sensitive), and into the near-infrared. Hubble's primary mirror is 2.4 meters (94.5 inches) in diameter. Hubble is not large by ground-based standards but it performs heroically in space. Hubble orbits Earth every 96 minutes, 575 kilometers (360 miles) above the Earth's surface.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD performs the daily orbital operations, servicing mission development, and overall management of the Hubble Program. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD develops and executes Hubble's scientific program and is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under contract to NASA.

Credit: NASA, ESA

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_space_telescope_18x24_18x24_poster-228748610827521527Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:22:57 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Space Telescope 18x24 (18x24) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_space_telescope_18x24_18x24_poster-228748610827521527meralee
Hubble Space Telescope 18x24 (18x24) Poster
by meralee
]]>$23.60
Named after the trailblazing astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a large, space-based observatory which has revolutionized astronomy by providing unprecedented deep and clear views of the Universe, ranging from our own solar system to extremely remote fledgling galaxies forming not long after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever (05.29.2009)Take one space shuttle, seven highly trained astronauts, tons of equipment, and one legendary orbiting telescope and you have the 5.3 million-mile odyssey that was Hubble's final servicing mission (SM4). Launched in 1990 and greatly extended in its scientific powers through new instrumentation installed during four servicing missions with the Space Shuttle, the Hubble, in its eighteen years of operations, has validated Lyman Spitzer Jr.'s (1914-1997) original concept of a diversely instrumented observatory orbiting far above the distorting effects of the Earth's atmosphere and returning data of unique scientific value.

Hubble's coverage of light of different colors (its "spectral range") extends from the ultraviolet, through the visible (to which our eyes are sensitive), and into the near-infrared. Hubble's primary mirror is 2.4 meters (94.5 inches) in diameter. Hubble is not large by ground-based standards but it performs heroically in space. Hubble orbits Earth every 96 minutes, 575 kilometers (360 miles) above the Earth's surface.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD performs the daily orbital operations, servicing mission development, and overall management of the Hubble Program. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD develops and executes Hubble's scientific program and is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under contract to NASA.

Credit: NASA, ESA

]]>$23.60g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_finds_ring_of_dark_matter_12x12_13x13_poster-228425223773293897Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:06:09 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Finds Ring of Dark Matter 12x12 (13x13) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_finds_ring_of_dark_matter_12x12_13x13_poster-228425223773293897meralee
Hubble Finds Ring of Dark Matter 12x12 (13x13) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
most common substance in the universe is called dark matter. It doesn’t shine or reflect light. We can’t even see it.

This Hubble Space Telescope composite image shows a ghostly "ring" of dark matter in the galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17. The ring-like structure is evident in the blue map of the cluster's dark matter distribution. The map is superimposed on a Hubble image of the cluster. The ring is one of the strongest pieces of evidence to date for the existence of dark matter, an unknown substance that pervades the universe.

Credit: NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_ultra_deep_field_24x24_22x22_print-228616873422221876Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:50:34 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Ultra Deep Field 24x24 (22x22) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_ultra_deep_field_24x24_22x22_print-228616873422221876meralee
Hubble Ultra Deep Field 24x24 (22x22) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years.

The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.

In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.

The Ultra Deep Field represents a narrow, deep view of the cosmos, like looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith(STScI) and The HUDF Team

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_ultra_deep_field_20x30_20x30_posters-228361752160440356Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:18:25 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Ultra Deep Field 20x30 (20x30) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_ultra_deep_field_20x30_20x30_posters-228361752160440356meralee
Hubble Ultra Deep Field 20x30 (20x30) Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years.

The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.

In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.

The Ultra Deep Field represents a narrow, deep view of the cosmos, like looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith(STScI) and The HUDF Team

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_deep_field_20x30_16x24_print-228403586597471973Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:09:54 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Deep Field 20x30 (16x24) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_deep_field_20x30_16x24_print-228403586597471973meralee
Hubble Deep Field 20x30 (16x24) Print
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Galaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Deep Field - one of humanity's most distant optical views of the Universe. The dimmest, some as faint as 30th magnitude (about four billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided eye), are very distant galaxies and represent what the Universe looked like in the extreme past, perhaps less than one billion years after the Big Bang. To make the Deep Field image, astronomers selected an uncluttered area of the sky in the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear) and pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a single spot for 10 days accumulating and combining many separate exposures. With each additional exposure, fainter objects were revealed. The final result can be used to explore the mysteries of galaxy evolution and the infant Universe.

Credit: NASA, R. Williams, The HDF Team (STScI)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_deep_field_18x24_18x24_print-228639394170802775Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:48:45 GMT<![CDATA[Hubble Deep Field 18x24 (18x24) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/hubble_deep_field_18x24_18x24_print-228639394170802775meralee
Hubble Deep Field 18x24 (18x24) Print
by meralee
]]>$23.60
Galaxies like colorful pieces of candy fill the Hubble Deep Field - one of humanity's most distant optical views of the Universe. The dimmest, some as faint as 30th magnitude (about four billion times fainter than stars visible to the unaided eye), are very distant galaxies and represent what the Universe looked like in the extreme past, perhaps less than one billion years after the Big Bang. To make the Deep Field image, astronomers selected an uncluttered area of the sky in the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear) and pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a single spot for 10 days accumulating and combining many separate exposures. With each additional exposure, fainter objects were revealed. The final result can be used to explore the mysteries of galaxy evolution and the infant Universe.

Credit: NASA, R. Williams, The HDF Team (STScI)

]]>$23.60g http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_eyes_36x12_36x12_poster-228594104309461331Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:56:24 GMT<![CDATA[Helix Nebula Eyes 36x12 (36x12) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_eyes_36x12_36x12_poster-228594104309461331meralee
Helix Nebula Eyes 36x12 (36x12) Poster
by meralee
]]>$20.95
Explanation: Will our Sun look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies about 650 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans about 2.5 light-years. The above picture is a composite of newly released images from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and wide-angle images from the Mosaic Camera on the WIYN 0.9-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.

Credit: NASA, WIYN, NOAO, ESA, Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), & T. A. Rector (NRAO)

]]>$20.95g http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_envelope_20x30_18x27_poster-228611305341022724Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:46:25 GMT<![CDATA[Helix Nebula Envelope 20x30 (18x27) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_envelope_20x30_18x27_poster-228611305341022724meralee
Helix Nebula Envelope 20x30 (18x27) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
Explanation: Will our Sun look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies about 650 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans about 2.5 light-years. The above picture is a composite of newly released images from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and wide-angle images from the Mosaic Camera on the WIYN 0.9-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.

Credit: NASA, WIYN, NOAO, ESA, Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), & T. A. Rector (NRAO)

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_52x52_53x53_print-228026348065837390Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:41:45 GMT<![CDATA[Helix Nebula 52x52 (53x53) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/helix_nebula_52x52_53x53_print-228026348065837390meralee
Helix Nebula 52x52 (53x53) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
Explanation: Will our Sun look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies about 650 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans about 2.5 light-years. The above picture is a composite of newly released images from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and wide-angle images from the Mosaic Camera on the WIYN 0.9-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.

Credit: NASA, WIYN, NOAO, ESA, Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), & T. A. Rector (NRAO)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/globular_cluster_m13_center_24x24_21x21_print-228045469233142881Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:26:54 GMT<![CDATA[Globular Cluster M13 Center 24x24 (21x21) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/globular_cluster_m13_center_24x24_21x21_print-228045469233142881meralee
Globular Cluster M13 Center 24x24 (21x21) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
Like a whirl of shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, Hubble catches an instantaneous glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster M13, one of the brightest and best-known globular clusters in the northern sky. This glittering metropolis of stars is easily found in the winter sky in the constellation Hercules and can even be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

M13 is home to over 100,000 stars and located at a distance of 25,000 light-years. These stars are packed so closely together in a ball, approximately 150 light-years across, that they will spend their entire lives whirling around in the cluster.

Near the core of this cluster, the density of stars is about a hundred times greater than the density in the neighborhood of our sun. These stars are so crowded that they can, at times, slam into each other and even form a new star, called a "blue straggler."

The brightest reddish stars in the cluster are ancient red giants. These aging stars have expanded to many times their original diameters and cooled. The blue-white stars are the hottest in the cluster.

Globular clusters can be found spread largely in a vast halo around our galaxy. M13 is one of nearly 150 known globular clusters surrounding our Milky Way galaxy.

Globular clusters have some of the oldest stars in the universe. They likely formed before the disk of our Milky Way, so they are older than nearly all other stars in our galaxy. Studying globular clusters therefore tells us about the history of our galaxy.

This image is a composite of archival Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Observations from four separate science proposals taken in November 1999, April 2000, August 2005, and April 2006 were used. The image includes broadband filters that isolate light from the blue, visible, and infrared portions of the spectrum.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/ghost_head_nebula_16x20_16x20_poster-228969018306918105Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:12:55 GMT<![CDATA[Ghost Head Nebula 16x20 (16x20) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/ghost_head_nebula_16x20_16x20_poster-228969018306918105meralee
Ghost Head Nebula 16x20 (16x20) Poster
by meralee
]]>$22.40
The Ghost Head Nebula, or NGC 2080, is a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The nebula spans about 50 light-years and this image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is shown in representative colors.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris) et al.

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/four_hubble_pics_16x20_16x20_print-228549830988134771Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:04:50 GMT<![CDATA[Four Hubble Pics 16x20 (16x20) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/four_hubble_pics_16x20_16x20_print-228549830988134771meralee
Four Hubble Pics 16x20 (16x20) Print
by meralee
]]>$22.40
Shown are the Butterfly Nebula, upper left; Stephan’s Quintet of galaxies, upper right; the Sagittarius Star Cloud (bottom left, more about below); and a Jet in the Carina Nebula, bottom right.

Sagittarius Star Cloud: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has given us a keyhole view towards the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy, where a dazzling array of stars reside. Most of the view of our galaxy is obscured by dust. Hubble peered into the Sagittarius Star Cloud, a narrow, dust-free region, providing this spectacular glimpse of a treasure chest full of stars. Some of these gems are among the oldest inhabitants of our galaxy. By studying the older stars that pack our Milky Way's hub, scientists can learn more about the evolution of our galaxy.

Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)

]]>$22.40g http://www.zazzle.com/extended_groth_strip_78x52_69x46_posters-228019181060196235Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:47:51 GMT<![CDATA[Extended Groth Strip 78x52 (69x46) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/extended_groth_strip_78x52_69x46_posters-228019181060196235meralee
Extended Groth Strip 78x52 (69x46) Posters
by meralee
]]>$28.60
A poster of the Groth Strip would be 133 inches by 18 inches at 300 ppi. To make it easier to print, the strip was cut in half and the two strips placed side by side. Minor editing removed artifacts and the field of galaxies appears seamless.

The Extended Groth Strip is an image of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major, based on the results of a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers an area 70 arcminutes across and 10 arcminutes wide, which correlates to a patch of sky roughly the width of a finger stretched at arms length. The image was assembled from over 500 separate exposures taken with the Space Telescope's Advanced Camera Survey at 63 different pointings, spread out over the course of one year from June 2004 to March 2005.

There are at least 50,000 galaxies in its view, giving new clues about the universe's youth, from its "pre-teen" years to young adulthood. The snowstorm of galaxies in the Hubble panorama does not appear evenly spread out. Some galaxies seem to be grouped together. Others are scattered through space. This uneven distribution of galaxies traces the concentration of dark matter, an invisible web-like structure stretching throughout space. Galaxies form in areas rich in dark matter.

The Extended Groth Strip is named for Princeton University physicist Edward Groth. The project is jointly led by Sandra Faber, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Marc Davis, professor of astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Davis (University of California, Berkeley)

]]>$28.60g http://www.zazzle.com/eastern_hemisphere_at_night_52x35_41x27_poster-228618542332763301Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:27:50 GMT<![CDATA[Eastern Hemisphere at Night 52x35 (41x27) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/eastern_hemisphere_at_night_52x35_41x27_poster-228618542332763301meralee
Eastern Hemisphere at Night 52x35 (41x27) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This image of Earth's city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth's surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya.

Completed: 2004-02-16

Credits: Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC) and Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC). Image by Craig Mayhew (NASA/GSFC) and Robert Simmon (NASA/GSFC).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/earths_surface_78x52_72x48_poster-228416084183545102Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:10:59 GMT<![CDATA[Earth's Surface 78x52 (72x48) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/earths_surface_78x52_72x48_poster-228416084183545102meralee
Earth's Surface 78x52 (72x48) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet.

Much of the information contained in this image came from a single remote-sensing device-NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. Flying over 700 km above the Earth onboard the Terra satellite, MODIS provides an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric features of the Earth. The land and coastal ocean portions of these images are based on surface observations collected from June through September 2001 and combined, or composited, every eight days to compensate for clouds that might block the sensor’s view of the surface on any single day. Two different types of ocean data were used in these images: shallow water true color data, and global ocean color (or chlorophyll) data. Topographic shading is based on the GTOPO 30 elevation dataset compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey’s EROS Data Center. MODIS observations of polar sea ice were combined with observations of Antarctica made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s AVHRR sensor—the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. The cloud image is a composite of two days of imagery collected in visible light wavelengths and a third day of thermal infra-red imagery over the poles. Global city lights, derived from 9 months of observations from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, are superimposed on a darkened land surface map.

Credits: NASA: The Visible Earth

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/earth_north_polar_view_78x52_60x40_posters-228925392658992553Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:00:18 GMT<![CDATA[Earth North Polar View 78x52 (60x40) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/earth_north_polar_view_78x52_60x40_posters-228925392658992553meralee
Earth North Polar View 78x52 (60x40) Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
These very high resolution images show a global view of the Earth at different orientations with Arctic sea ice on December 8, 2008 and September 15, 2008. The extent of the sea ice was determined by the AMSR-E sea ice concentration data. The terrain shows the average land cover for the related months over the continents. (See Blue Marble Next Generation) The global cloud cover shown was obtained from the original Blue Marble cloud data distributed in 2002.

The polar view shows Earth with clouds and sea ice from September 15, 2008.

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/earth_hurricane_ike_52x52_40x40_poster-228468638279675819Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:51:03 GMT<![CDATA[Earth Hurricane Ike 52x52 (40x40) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/earth_hurricane_ike_52x52_40x40_poster-228468638279675819meralee
Earth Hurricane Ike 52x52 (40x40) Poster
by meralee
]]>$19.70
At 1747 UTC on 13 September 2008, this high-resolution image of GOES clouds over a MODIS true-color background is designed to be printed on a square meter poster at 300 ppi, but will look practically perfect at 52 inches square at 230 ppi.

Hurricane Ike is visible over the SE United States.

Credit: NASA, NOAA GOES-12

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/earth_atlantic_view_78x52_60x40_posters-228650368537319749Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:25:27 GMT<![CDATA[Earth Atlantic View 78x52 (60x40) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/earth_atlantic_view_78x52_60x40_posters-228650368537319749meralee
Earth Atlantic View 78x52 (60x40) Posters
by meralee
]]>$25.05
These very high resolution images show a global view of the Earth at different orientations with Arctic sea ice on December 8, 2008 and September 15, 2008. The extent of the sea ice was determined by the AMSR-E sea ice concentration data. The terrain shows the average land cover for the related months over the continents. (See Blue Marble Next Generation) The global cloud cover shown was obtained from the original Blue Marble cloud data distributed in 2002.

The polar view shows Earth with clouds and sea ice from September 15, 2008.

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/earth_at_night_78x52_55x37_print-228438738977853481Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:10:26 GMT<![CDATA[Earth at Night 78x52 (55x37) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/earth_at_night_78x52_55x37_print-228438738977853481meralee
Earth at Night 78x52 (55x37) Print
by meralee
]]>$25.05
This image of Earth's city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth's surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya.

Completed: 2004-02-16

Credits: Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC) and Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC). Image by Craig Mayhew (NASA/GSFC) and Robert Simmon (NASA/GSFC).

]]>$25.05g http://www.zazzle.com/eagle_nebula_24x24_16x16_posters-228039214661016753Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:52:36 GMT<![CDATA[Eagle Nebula 24x24 (16x16) Posters]]>http://www.zazzle.com/eagle_nebula_24x24_16x16_posters-228039214661016753meralee
Eagle Nebula 24x24 (16x16) Posters
by meralee
]]>$19.70
This 1995 photo of eerie, dark pillar-like structures has appeared on magazine covers, postcards and computer desktops worldwide. The pillars are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that serve as incubators for new stars.

This dramatic picture from the Hubble telescope shows newborn stars emerging from dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs). Hubble found the "EGGs," appropriately enough, in the Eagle nebula, a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens.

These striking pictures resolve the EGGs at the tip of finger-like features protruding from monstrous columns of cold gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (also called M16). The columns — dubbed "elephant trunks" — protrude from the wall of a vast cloud of molecular hydrogen, like stalagmites rising above the floor of a cavern. Inside the gaseous towers, which are light-years long, the interstellar gas is dense enough to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars that continue to grow as they accumulate more and more mass from their surroundings.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/dusty_galaxy_ngc_1316_12x12_11x11_print-228929240434612599Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:34:26 GMT<![CDATA[Dusty Galaxy NGC 1316 12x12 (11x11) Print]]>http://www.zazzle.com/dusty_galaxy_ngc_1316_12x12_11x11_print-228929240434612599meralee
Dusty Galaxy NGC 1316 12x12 (11x11) Print
by meralee
]]>$19.70
Like dust bunnies that lurk in corners and under beds, surprisingly complex loops and blobs of cosmic dust lie hidden in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. This image made from data obtained with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the dust lanes and star clusters of this giant galaxy that give evidence that it was formed from a past merger of two gas-rich galaxies.

The combination of Hubble's superb spatial resolution and the sensitivity of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), installed onboard Hubble in 2002 and used for these images, enabled uniquely accurate measurements of a class of red star clusters in NGC 1316. Astronomers conclude that these star clusters constitute clear evidence of the occurrence of a major collision of two spiral galaxies that merged together a few billion years ago to shape NGC 1316 as it appears today.

NGC 1316 is on the outskirts of a nearby cluster of galaxies in the southern constellation of Fornax, at a distance of about 75 million light-years. It is one of the brightest ellipticals in the Fornax galaxy cluster. NGC 1316, also known as Fornax A, is one of the strongest and largest radio sources in the sky, with radio lobes extending over several degrees of sky (well off the Hubble image).

NGC 1316's violent history is evident in various ways. Wide-field imagery from Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile shows a bewildering variety of ripples, loops and plumes immersed in the galaxy's outer envelope. Amongst these so-called "tidal" features, the narrow ones are believed to be the stellar remains of other spiral galaxies that merged with NGC 1316 some time during the last few billion years. The inner regions of the galaxy shown in the Hubble image reveal a complicated system of dust lanes and patches. These are thought to be the remains of the interstellar medium associated with one or more of the spiral galaxies swallowed by NGC 1316.

The U.S. team of scientists, led by Dr. Paul Goudfrooij of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, used the ACS onboard Hubble to study star clusters in several nearby giant elliptical galaxies. Their study of NGC 1316 focused on globular clusters, which are compact stellar systems with hundreds of thousands to millions of stars formed at the same time.

The unprecedented sensitivity of the Hubble ACS data permitted the team to detect faint globular clusters previously impossible to reach. By counting the number of globular clusters detected as a function of their brightness they could, for the first time, see evidence of the gradual disruption of star clusters created during a past merger of gas-rich galaxies. They found that the relative number of low-mass clusters is significantly lower in the inner regions than in the outer regions, by an amount consistent with theoretical predictions.

These Hubble ACS images were taken in March 2003. The color composite is a combination of data taken in F435W (blue), F555W (yellow-green), and F814W (infrared) filters. The team's results have improved our understanding of how elliptical galaxies and their star clusters may have formed during galaxy mergers and then evolve to resemble 'normal' elliptical galaxies after several billions of years.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Acknowledgment: P. Goudfrooij (STScI)

]]>$19.70g http://www.zazzle.com/dust_clouds_in_the_milky_way_12x18_12x18_poster-228415319010293926Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:56:33 GMT<![CDATA[Dust Clouds in the Milky Way 12x18 (12x18) Poster]]>http://www.zazzle.com/dust_clouds_in_the_milky_way_12x18_12x18_poster-228415319010293926meralee
Dust Clouds in the Milky Way 12x18 (12x18) Poster
by meralee
]]>$25.05
The yearly ritual of spring cleaning clears a house of dust as well as dust "bunnies", those pesky dust balls that frolic under beds and behind furniture. NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has photographed similar dense knots of dust and gas in our Milky Way Galaxy. This cosmic dust, however, is not a nuisance. It is a concentration of elements that are responsible for the formation of stars in our galaxy and throughout the universe.

These opaque, dark knots of gas and dust are called Bok globules, and they are absorbing light in the center of the nearby emission nebula and star-forming region, NGC 281. The globules are named after astronomer Bart Bok, who proposed their existence in the 1940's.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)

Acknowledgment: P. McCullough (STScI)]]>$25.05g