Featured News

Webb Study Reveals Rocky Planets Can Form in Extreme Environments

NASA Remembers Trailblazing Astronaut, Scientist Mary Cleave

NASA, Small Companies Eye New Cargo Delivery, Heat Shield Technologies

NASA Orbiter Snaps Stunning Views of Mars Horizon
Remembering Astronaut Mary Cleave
Retired NASA astronaut Mary Cleave, a veteran of two NASA spaceflights, died Nov. 27. She was 76.
Read More about Remembering Astronaut Mary Cleave
Today
Image Of The Day
Globular Cluster Omega Centauri Looks Radiant in Infrared
A cluster brimming with millions of stars glistens like an iridescent opal in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Called Omega Centauri, the sparkling orb of stars is like a miniature galaxy. It is the biggest and brightest of the 150 or so similar objects, called globular clusters, that orbit around the outside of our Milky Way galaxy. Stargazers at southern latitudes can spot the stellar gem with the naked eye in the constellation Centaurus. Globular clusters are some of the oldest objects in our universe. Their stars are over 12 billion years old, and, in most cases, formed all at once when the universe was just a toddler. Omega Centauri is unusual in that its stars are of different ages and possess varying levels of metals, or elements heavier than boron. Astronomers say this points to a different origin for Omega Centauri than other globular clusters: they think it might be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was ripped apart and absorbed by our Milky Way long ago. In this new view of Omega Centauri, Spitzer’s infrared observations have been combined with visible-light data from the National Science Foundation’s Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Visible-light data with a wavelength of .55 microns is colored blue, 3.6-micron infrared light captured by Spitzer’s infrared array camera is colored green and 24-micron infrared light taken by Spitzer’s multiband imaging photometer is colored red. Where green and red overlap, the color yellow appears. Thus, the yellow and red dots are stars revealed by Spitzer. These stars, called red giants, are more evolved, larger and dustier. The stars that appear blue were spotted in both visible and 3.6-micron-, or near-, infrared light. They are less evolved, like our own sun. Some of the red spots in the picture are distant galaxies beyond our own.
Earth Information Center
Discover Earth as NASA sees it. Learn why this information matters to us all.
Explore about Earth Information Center
Latest News
Tour the Space Station in Spanish
Record-breaking NASA astronaut Frank Rubio provides the agency’s first Spanish-language video tour of humanity’s home in space – the International Space Station.
Stream on NASA+ about Tour the Space Station in Spanish
Explore the Universe from your Inbox
Stay up-to-date on the latest news from NASA–from Earth to the Moon, the Solar System and beyond.
We’ll never share your email address.




















