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Posts by
Deborah Byrd
ALMA spies a cool gas ring around our Milky Way’s central black hole
New observations by the ALMA telescope in Chile have revealed a never-before-seen disk of cool, interstellar gas wrapped around Sagittarius A*, the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy.
June 9, 2019
Golden eagle and funnel cloud, over Oregon
A golden eagle flying in front of a funnel cloud over the Steens Mountain Wilderness in southeastern Oregon. Thomas Patrick Tully, who posted these photos in earIy June, wrote that the funnel "... almost touched down and stayed strong for several minutes."
June 7, 2019
Here’s a portrait of a family of stars
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was used to create this large mosaic of stars and dust clouds in the direction of the constellation Cepheus. Here are multiple star clusters - young, middle-aged and older - born from the same dense clumps of gas and dust.
June 6, 2019
Meteor Crater, Arizona
Joe Neeley captured the Milky Way over Meteor Crater, Arizona, on June 1, 2019, after holding a 2nd annual photography night at the crater last weekend.
June 5, 2019
Curiosity sees noctilucent clouds shining in Mars’ sky
Late last month, the Curiosity rover picked up wonderful images of noctilucent - or "night-shining" - clouds in the Martian sky. Plus - if you're at a high latitude on Earth now - it's time to start looking for these clouds.
June 3, 2019
Tornado near Edmond, Oklahoma
Since mid-May, the central and eastern U.S. have seen their biggest outbreak of tornadoes since 2011, with more than 366 twisters sighted.
May 31, 2019
Lightning, New York City, May 28, 2019
Alex Krivenyshev of the website WorldTimeZone.com caught these photos of the lightning show over New York City on May 28. "Watching from my window," he wrote. Thanks for sharing, Alex!
May 29, 2019
Giant planets and comets battle in planet-forming disk
A study of dust in the disk around the star HD 163296 suggests we're glimpsing a gravitational interaction between giant planets and much-smaller objects, the future asteroids and comets of this newly forming solar system.
May 28, 2019
Tiny dips in star brightnesses reveal 3 exocomets
It's amazing we can detect comets in distant solar systems at all! These are the first 3 exocomets found in data gathered by TESS, NASA's newest planet-hunter. The comets orbit the famous star Beta Pictoris.
May 26, 2019
Stolen comets and free-floating objects
What happens when young stars brush past each other? A lot, according to a new study suggesting our solar system contains comets stolen from another star 4.5 billion years ago.
May 26, 2019
