Mission Discoveries
400 years ago, Galileo Galilei looked through a telescope and changed humanity’s view of the universe forever. He started a revolution that placed the Earth and Sun in their rightful place within a cosmos filled with innumerable stars and new distant worlds. In celebration of Humankind’s first modern glimpse into the beautifully complex workings of our solar system and beyond, the world is celebrating 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy.
Please come back soon to learn about how NASA and its missions have contributed significantly to the history of Astronomy. In the interim, we encourage you to visit the following websites:
»Zoomable NASA Mission Images - NEW!
»Infrared Astronomy Timeline (New browser window)
»Celebrate NASA's Past and Promising Future! (New browser window)
»Major Milestones In X-ray Astronomy - Chandra Chronicles (New browser window)
»Solar System Exploration (New browser window)
»Telescopes from the Ground Up (New browser window)
Helix Nebula
The Helix nebula is a glimpse into our distant future, when, in five billion years time, the Sun will exhaust its nuclear fuel and blow off its outer layers into a beautiful shimmering cloud of gas like the one that we see here.
Spitzer has probed the inner regions of the Helix, detecting a ring of dust around the dead star that is possibly all that remains of a family of planets.