Astronomy, seems a small word. But this is an word which contains the universe. It is so, I called it seems a small word in the first sentence. Astronomy is beautiful science, it is the thing which attracts everyone.

If you think about the solar system, galaxy to the UFO’s everything are very interesting. So, I culled these images to make a beautiful post of the beautiful science.

There are sites which releases many of the Images from the space every year, So it is difficult task to choose fifty Images from one year. But I had collected some of the Images which are best in year 2008.

Enjoy the images. Here I had inserted the original image link to provide high resolution images. Click on the images and get the high Resolution Images.
Rays from an Unexpected Aurora

Here is a Aurora which is surprising, possibly more surprising. In this image, It is captured from North Dakota, USA, a picket fence of green rays stretches toward the horizon.

M51: Cosmic Whirlpool

It is a larger Galaxy which names NGC 5195, It has spiral arms and dust. It is 31 million light-years away from here.

Young Star Cluster Westerlund 2

It is young star cluster Westerlund 2 which sorrounds Dusty stellar nursery RCW 49 in space beyond the visible light spectrum. It is available by the Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. It is 2 million years old.

NGC 4676: When Mice Collide

In the image these two galaxies are pulling each other apart. They are near about to collide, in the space galaxies collide again ans again until they coalesce.

This image is taken by Hubble Telescope. Its name is NGC 4676, it is 300 million light-years away.

Dawn of the Large Hadron Collider

In the setup for the words largest experiment Europe’s CERN has built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), It is a powerful particle accelerator developed by humans.
Mauna Kea Shadow Play

Here a remarkeble play of sun, moon and shadows may be seen. It is time of evening in one direction sun is setting and in other direction moon is rising.

M104 Hubble Remix

The striking spiral galaxy M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust. Seen in silhouette against a bright bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lanes lends a hat-like appearance to the galaxy in optical images suggesting the more popular moniker, The Sombrero Galaxy.

Here, Hubble Space Telescope archival image data has been reprocessed to create this alternative look at the well-known galaxy.

The newly developed processing improves the visibility of details otherwise lost in overwhelming glare, in this case allowing features of the galaxy’s dust lanes to be followed well into the bright central region.

About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.
Star Forming Region LH 95

How do stars form? To better understand this complex and chaotic process, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to image in unprecedented detail the star forming region LH 95 in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

Usually only the brightest, bluest, most massive stars in a star forming region are visible, but the above image was taken in such high resolution and in such specific colors that many recently formed stars that are more yellow, more dim, and less massive are also discernable.

Also visible in the above scientifically colored image is a blue sheen of diffuse hydrogen gas heated by the young stars, and dark dust created by stars or during supernova explosions.

Studying the locations and abundances of lower mass stars in star forming regions and around molecular clouds helps uncover what conditions were present when they formed.

LH 95 spans about 150 light years and lies about 160,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Swordfish.

M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds in Orion

An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion.

The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. Of the two reflection nebulas pictured above, the more famous nebula is M78, on the upper right, while NGC 2071 can be seen to its lower left.

The same type of scattering that colors the daytime sky further enhances the blue color. M78 is about five light-years across and visible through a small telescope.

M78 appears above only as it was 1600 years ago, however, because that is how long it takes light to go from there to here. M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula.

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic.

These martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of the Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, recorded at a resolution of about seven meters per pixel.

But Phobos orbits so close to Mars – about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon – that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so Phobos will likely be shattered by stress caused by the relentless tidal forces, the debris forming a decaying ring around Mars.

A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff

This sky is protected. On the day of NASA 50 year anniversary of the first lighting ordinance ever enacted, which restricted searchlight advertisements from sweeping the night skies above Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.

Flagstaff now enjoys the status of being the first International Dark Sky City, and maintains a lighting code that limits lights from polluting this majestic nighttime view. The current dark skies over Flagstaff not only enable local astronomers to decode the universe but allow local sky enthusiasts to see and enjoy a tapestry contemplated previously by every human generation.

The above image, pointing just east of north, was taken from Fort Valley, only 10 kilometers from central Flagstaff. Visible in the above spectacular panorama are the San Francisco Peaks caped by a lenticular cloud.

Far in the distance, the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, highlighted by the constellations of Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cygnus. On the far right, the North America Nebula is visible just under the very bright star Deneb.

Gripped by an astronomical spring fever, many northern hemisphere stargazers embark on a Messier Marathon.

Completing the marathon requires viewing all 110 objects in 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier’s catalog in one glorious dusk-to-dawn observing run.

Shaping NGC 6188

Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away.

Formed in that region only a few million years ago, the massive young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association sculpt the fantastic shapes and power the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation.

The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas.

A false-color Hubble palette was used to create the this gorgeous wide-field image and shows emission from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, and blue hues.

At the estimated distance of NGC 6188, the picture spans about 300 light-years.

Galaxies Collide in NGC 3256

Galaxies don’t normally look like this. NGC 3256 actually shows a current picture of two galaxies that are slowly colliding. Quite possibly, in hundreds of millions of years, only one galaxy will remain. Today, however, NGC 3256 shows intricate filaments of dark dust, unusual tidal tails of stars, and a peculiar center that contains two distinct nuclei.

Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies will directly collide, the gas, dust, and ambient magnetic fields do interact directly. NGC 3256, part of the vast Hydra-Centaurus supercluster of galaxies, spans over 100 thousand light-years across and is located about 100 million light-years away.

The Dark Tower in Scorpius

In silhouette against a crowded star field toward the constellation Scorpius, this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower. In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gas collapsing to form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula, a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across the gorgeous telescopic view.

Known as a cometary globule, the swept-back cloud, extending from the upper right to the head (top of the tower) left and below center, is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation from the OB association of very hot stars in NGC 6231, off the left edge of the scene.

That energetic ultraviolet light also powers the globule’s bordering reddish glow of hydrogen gas. Hot stars embedded in the dust can be seen as small bluish reflection nebulae. This dark tower, NGC 6231, and associated nebulae are about 5,000 light-years away.
Sideways Galaxy NGC 3628

Dark dust lanes cut across the middle of this gorgeous island universe, a strong hint that NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy seen sideways.

About 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo, NGC 3628 also bears the distinction of being the only member of the well known Leo triplet of galaxies not in Charles Messier’s famous catalog.

Otherwise similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy, the disk of NGC 3628 is clearly seen to fan out near the edges. A faint arm of material also extends to the left in this sharp and deep view of the region.

he distorted shape and faint tidal tail suggest that NGC 3628 is interacting gravitationally with the other spiral galaxies in the Leo triplet, M66 and M65.

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