This series of images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a dark mass of gas and dust, called a core, where new stars and planets will likely spring up.
The image on the far right s...
This image, taken by NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission in 2000, shows a close-up view of Eros, an asteroid with an orbit that takes it somewhat close to Earth. NASA's Spitzer Space Telesco...
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This artist's concept illustrates an imminent planetary collision around a pair of double stars. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence that such collisions could be common around a certain typ...
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This artist's concept illustrates a tight pair of stars and a surrounding disk of dust -- most likely the shattered remains of planetary smashups. Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the scientists ...
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This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a dusty planetary smashup probably occurred around a pair of tight twin, or binary, stars. The stars are similar to the sun...
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Astronomers have found that stars are forming more rapidly in the center of a distant galaxy cluster than at its edges, which is completely reversed from galaxy clusters seen in the local universe. Th...
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Two extremely bright stars illuminate a greenish mist in this and other images from the new "GLIMPSE360" survey from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This fog is comprised of hydrogen and carbon compou...
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This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a wispy, vast structure in the constellation Perseus with a small bubble right in its center puffed out by the spasms of fresh-formed, heavyweight ...
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This image shows an outflow of gas from a new star as it jets from a space object dubbed IRAS 21078+5211. The reddish blob in its center, as picked up by the 4.5-micron infrared band on NASA's Spitzer...
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A star-forming region called BG2107+49 shines from the considerable distance of more than 30,000 light-years away in the upper left of this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. With Spitzer's re...
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These data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show the signatures of buckyballs in space. Buckyballs, also called C60 or buckministerfullerenes, after architect Buckminister Fuller's geode...
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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has at last found buckyballs in space, as illustrated by this artist's conception showing the carbon balls coming out from the type of object where they were discovered ...
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This star-forming region, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, is dominated by the bright, young star IRAS 13481-6124 (upper left), which is about twenty times the mass of our sun and five time...
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Astronomers have obtained the first clear look at a dusty disk closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars do form in the same way as their smaller brethren --...
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A dragon-shaped cloud of dust seems to fly out from a bright explosion in this infrared light image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
These views have revealed that this dark cloud, ca...
A dragon-shaped cloud of dust seems to fly out from a bright explosion in this infrared light image (bottom) from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a creature that is entirely cloaked in shadow when vie...
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This image shows what astronomers think is one of the coldest brown dwarfs discovered so far (red dot in middle of frame). The object, called SDWFS J143524.44+335334.6, is one of 14 such brown dwarfs ...
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This artist's conception shows simulated data predicting the hundreds of failed stars, or brown dwarfs, that NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is expected to add to the population of k...
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New evidence from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is showing that tight-knit twin stars might be triggered to form by asymmetrical envelopes like the ones shown in this image.
A surprisingly large collection of galaxies (red dots in center) stands out at a remarkably large distance in this composite image combining infrared and visible-light observations.