290.

A bright star cluster glitters like a fireworks display over a cloud of interstellar gas and dust in a Hubble Space Telescope  

stars with the same birthday that have grown up to have different sizes and masses

like fraternal twins

a ghost crab eats oil from the spill

Pensacola,, Florida

Late last week coastal geologist Rip Kirby was on the seashore as part of an effort to detect oil by shining UV lights—widely used to spot blood at crime scenes—on Gulf beaches. The method, he hopes, will allow scientists and cleanup crews to tackle hard-to-spot oil, such as crude mixed with mud or light stains on sand, that's washed ashore from the sinking of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig.

In the final stages of life, sunlike stars expand their surface layers and become red giant stars. These layers then get expelled, exposing compact cores called white dwarfs, which light up surrounding gases.

a pretty death

I applied to national geographic

hmmm.

photo credit:

here