THE LATEST ASTRONOMY PHOTOS: 7/2015

Above, the side of Pluto facing its largest moon, Charon, as seen by the New Horizons probe two days ahead of rendezvous. The nearest pass will show the other side of the planet and will be in much sharper focus. Unfortunately this is the best picture of this side of Pluto that we'll get on this mission. Nobody knows what the dark areas are and why they're so regularly spaced. 

This is exciting! When I was a kid I had a special affection for Pluto because it seemed like the most mysterious and unknowable place in the Solar System. I never dreamed that I'd be able to see it up close in my lifetime.

Here's a picture of Antares, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. That's Antares in the middle of the blue haze within the orange dust cloud. The star is red but appears here as white, maybe because false color was applied. Anyway, the reason I put this up is for the dense star field that fills the picture. Isn't that incredible?

With all those closely packed stars constantly spewing high energy particles I can't even imagine how radioactive that environment must be. You have to wonder if it'll ever be possible to explore that part of the galaxy.

Have you ever wondered why we don't see giant nebulae in the sky at night? There's at least one pretty big one nearby...how come we don't see it?

The answer is that the cloud is just too thin to be easily seen when it's this close, but cameras can see it. It looms over our cities at night. It's Sharpless 2-308 (above), a.k.a. The Bubble Nebula, and it covers more of the night sky than a full moon.

Here's (above) a familiar picture: The Southern Ring Nebula. But what's that straight line crossing it? Nobody knows.