The Sleeping Gypsy is an 1897 oil painting by French Naïve artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910). It is a fantastical depiction of a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night.   What is the Sleeping [ … ]

The Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion’s Belt in the constellation of Orion.   What is the Orion Nebula? The Orion Nebula also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976 is one of the [ … ]

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus. The now-current name is due to William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1840 using a 36-inch telescope and produced a drawing that [ … ]

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two and a half times that of all the other planets in the [ … ]

N44 is an emission nebula with superbubble structure located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way in the constellation Dorado.   What is the emission nebula N44? Originally catalogued in Karl Henize’s “Catalogue of H-alpha emission stars [ … ]

Wave Rock is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave. The “wave” is about 14 m (46 ft) high and around 110 m (360 ft) long.   What is Wave [ … ]

The serval, also known as the tierboskat, is a wild cat found in Africa. It was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1776.   What is the serval? Eighteen subspecies are recognised. The serval [ … ]

Auroras seen within the auroral oval may be directly overhead, but from farther away they illuminate the poleward horizon as a greenish glow, or sometimes a faint red, as if [ … ]

A zebroid or zorse, is the offspring of any cross between a zebra and any other equine: essentially, a zebra hybrid.   What is a zebroid? Zebroids have been bred since the 19th century. Charles Darwin noted several zebra hybrids [ … ]