Environmental Graffiti

15 Phenomenal Images of the Aurora Australis

With today’s super telescopes, we are better placed than ever to witness the astonishing celestial beauty of stars, nebulae and quasars. But while telescopes are invaluable to our understanding of the distant Universe, there are luminous cosmic energies at play closer to home that can be seen clearly with the naked eye. Most people have heard tale of the legendary Northern Lights, but their southern cousins, Aurora Australis, make no less magical a spectacle.

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Understanding Black Holes

Black Holes have been confirmed by the tens of thousands throughout the universe. Often located at the center of large galaxies, they power star formation and are the most spectacular example of a 'singularity' - an object where the laws of nature as we understand them do not apply.

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Peering into the Beginnings of the Universe

Scheduled to launch in April 2009, the Herschel and Planck space telescopes bring capabilities never before available to study the origins of stars, galaxies and the universe. The expected data might revolutionize both astrophysics and philosophy.

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Milky Way Observed Over Mauna Kea Volcano

Our galaxy has been photographed many times, but this just released NASA panorama is a beauty! The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy that contains 200-400 billion stars and is 13.2 billion years old. On Earth, we are inside the galactic disk of the Milky Way, which is the arc of uncountable 'milky stars' we see in the night sky.

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