Stars | Page 5 of 67 | Astronomy.com

The blue reflection nebula M78 lies about 1,600 light-years away in Orion. It is a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that owes its luminosity to embedded, bright, blue, early B-type stars — making it the brightest diffuse reflection nebula in the Orion B molecular cloud complex.

Deep-Sky Objects

Deep-sky objects to target as a novice observer

Albireo (Beta [β] Cygni) is a classic example of a double star with contrasting colors.

Observing, Stars

What gives stars their colors?

’Starry Night’ captures the turbulent physics of why stars twinkle

ALMA images of R Doradus

ALMA reveals a star’s surface in unprecedented detail

Solar System, Stars

Waves may be heating the solar wind — and two spacecraft caught them in action

Exoplanets, Stars

Rogue worlds may give clues as to how stars form

Winter Constellations

Observing, Stars

Five almost-famous stars worth gazing at

The constellation Orion the Hunter hosts two of the 10 brightest stars in the sky, Betelgeuse and Rigel. At magnitude 0.5 and 0.2, respectively, Betelgeuse (orange star at upper left) and Rigel (blue-white star at lower right) stand in stark contrast to many of the surrounding stars.

Why do astronomers measure stars in magnitudes?

NGC 2623 is a great example of what a pair of interacting galaxies looks like, 260 million light-years distant. Galaxies need mergers or other cosmic events to perturb different regions and trigger star formation and galaxy evolution.

Survivors from the Milky Way’s birth

Hubble image of variable star RS Puppis

How do Cepheid variables indicate distance?

NGC 4449

Galaxies, Science, Stars

Gemini North celebrates its 25th birthday with a glorious photo of NGC 4449

JWST image of the Serpens Nebula

In a first, JWST captures ultra-detailed image of aligned jets in the Serpens Nebula