General
All Wound Up
by CritterKeeper on Aug.31, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Arms of dark dust tightly wind around the bright center of NGC 2787 in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Blowing Bubbles
by CritterKeeper on Aug.30, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA, ESA, Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris, France)
New stars in N83B are blowing bubbles in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Cluster of Jewels
by CritterKeeper on Aug.23, 2010, under General
Credit: European Space Agency & NASA
A cluster of jewels, known as NGC 265, glows in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
Solving a mystery
by CritterKeeper on Aug.20, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA, ESA, E. Jullo (JPL/LAM), P. Natarajan (Yale) and J-P. Kneib (LAM).
Sometimes what we can’t see is as important as what we can. Using new techniques, astronomers are helping solve the big mystery of dark energy in the Universe and perhaps its ultimate fate.
Ancient Ridges
by CritterKeeper on Aug.19, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Looking like the closeup of an elephant’s hide, polygonal ridges form odd geometric patterns on Mars.
Galactic Hook
by CritterKeeper on Aug.13, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA and ESA
The Universe seems to marvel in the weird. A hook, like a cosmic question mark, makes NGC 4696 stand out from its more shapeless elliptical galaxies in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
An Island Universe
by CritterKeeper on Aug.10, 2010, under General
Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)
A majestic face-on spiral, known as NGC 4911, is an island universe amid a thousand other galaxies in this deep image by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
WISE Image of Dusty Sisters
by CritterKeeper on Jul.28, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team
Dozens of stars in the Pleiades star cluster glow through a cool mist in this image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
A Cosmic Painting
by CritterKeeper on Jul.07, 2010, under General
Credit: ESA
R Coronae Australis lights up wispy blue clouds of gas and dust of this intense star–forming region 420 light-years from Earth.
California
by CritterKeeper on May.13, 2010, under General
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team
A wave of gas and dust that looks much like California (if you turn it a bit) runs diagonally through this image from NASA’s WISE satellite.
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Welcome to Starry Critters!
Thanks for dropping by! This site combines incredible imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and other great observatories with the imagination of children. Explore and share the patterns you see in the nebula, galaxies and star clusters.Note to Parents and Educators:
The main focus of the site are the images of space. We believe the explanations are best suited for parents, educators and upper grade students. Parents may find it helpful to view the site with their children and explore the universe together using the explanatory text as a guide. Background text is provided to let you know the real story behind the image. Links, very useful for parents and teachers, include definitions and will take you to other sites for even more detail.
Zoom in and out and pan around the images to find your own patterns in the stars. Be creative and think outside the box.Tell us your stories and let us know what you find! Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments, and stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed.
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