10 Years of Mesmerizing Photos From NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope

[Plenum]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...niversary/

For 10 years, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has been helping scientists on Earth learn more about the mysterious objects hiding in our star-studded skies. On August 25, 2003, the telescope -- carrying a relatively small, 0.85-meter beryllium mirror -- launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. Since then, it's been trailing the Earth on its orbit around the sun, like NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

Helix Nebula
What looks like an even more terrifying version of the Eye of Sauron is actually the Helix Nebula, about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Here, the white dwarf star (visible in the very center), is the dead remnant of what was once a star like the sun. The bright red glow immediately around it is probably the dust kicked up by colliding comets that survived the death of their stellar host.



many more pics

[isis]

[Bluebell]

Isis  

[Bluebell]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...niversary/

For 10 years, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has been helping scientists on Earth learn more about the mysterious objects hiding in our star-studded skies. On August 25, 2003, the telescope -- carrying a relatively small, 0.85-meter beryllium mirror -- launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. Since then, it's been trailing the Earth on its orbit around the sun, like NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

Helix Nebula
What looks like an even more terrifying version of the Eye of Sauron is actually the Helix Nebula, about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Here, the white dwarf star (visible in the very center), is the dead remnant of what was once a star like the sun. The bright red glow immediately around it is probably the dust kicked up by colliding comets that survived the death of their stellar host.



many more pics

it's gorgeous. it's not a red star? wut type of evolutionary stage is it at if it's a white dwarf?

[C-JEAN]

Hi, space fans.

FYI, you will get more than 10 years, there:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
!! 2015 down to 1995 !!

And, I go there every day:
Astronomy picture of the day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Blue skies. . .or nice black ones?!