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Alpha Centauri: The Closest Star SystemCredit: 1-Meter Schmidt Telescope, ESO The closest star system to the Sun is the Alpha Centauri system. Of the three stars in the system, the dimmest -- called Proxima Centauri -- is actually the nearest star. The bright stars Alpha Centauri A and B form a close binary as they are separated by only 23 times the Earth- Sun distance - slightly greater than the distance between Uranus and the Sun. In the above picture, the brightness of the stars overwhelm the photograph causing an illusion of great size, even though the stars are really...

Peering back in time to when the universe was just 750 million years old, a team of astrophysicists announced Sunday they have spied a tiny galaxy that is the most farthest known object. "We are confident it is the most distant known object," California Institute of Technology astronomer Richard Ellis said of the galaxy, which lies roughly 13 billion light-years from Earth. The team uncovered the faint galaxy using the two most powerful telescopes of their kind – one in space, the other in Hawaii – aided by the natural magnification provided by a massive cluster of galaxies. The gravitational...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 June 5 Ring of Fire from Cape Wrath Credit & Copyright: Hans Coeckelberghs Explanation: If the Moon's apparent diameter is not quite large enough to cover the Sun during a solar eclipse, an annular eclipse can be the result -- a spectacle of silhouetted Moon surrounded by a solar "ring of fire". Just such a view was possible for observers in the far northern hemisphere as the...