Image: Hubble surveys a snowman sculpted from gas and dust

The Snowman Nebula is an emission nebula that resides in the constellation Puppis in the southern sky, about 6,000 light-years away from Earth. Emission nebulae are diffuse clouds of gas that have become so charged by the ...

Quasars as the new cosmic standard candles

In 1929, Edwin Hubble published observations that galaxies' distances and velocities are correlated, with the distances determined using their Cepheid stars. Harvard astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt had discovered that a ...

Fornax A galaxy investigated with AstroSat

Using the AstroSat spacecraft, Indian astronomers have performed an imaging and spectroscopic study of the Fornax A galaxy. Results of the study, published January 13 on the arXiv preprint server, provide more clues on the ...

Cool textiles to beat the heat

Air-conditioned buildings bring welcome relief to people coming in from the heat. But creating that comfort comes with a cost to our wallets and the environment in the form of increased energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. ...

Image: SDO views active region loops

An active region viewed in profile put on quite a show of erupting plasma and looping arches on Sept. 22-23, 2015.

El Nino cycle has a big effect on a major greenhouse gas

Nitrous oxide is commonly associated with laughing gas—the pleasantly benign vapor that puts patients at ease in the dentist's chair. But outside the dentist's office, the gas plays a serious role in the planet's warming ...

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