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Virtual Backgrounds

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a black circle with a rainbow of colors around it
Measuring polarization of coronal light during a total solar eclipse

Credit: SwRI/Citizen CATE 2024
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telescope building in the foreground with colors of the night sky illuminating blues, yellows and reds
In this artistic rendering, a slice of the 3D map of galaxies collected in the first year of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Survey appears in a rainbow of color above the NSF Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope, on which DESI is mounted.

Credit: DESI Collaboration/NSF NOIRLab/KPNO/AURA/P. Horálek/R. Proctor
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pinks reds and blues within the view of space
Astronomers find a new luminous fast blue optical transient cosmic explosion

Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/M. Zamani
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aurora of green in the sky
Nathaniel B. Palmer at Davis Station anchorage

Credit: Scott Crabbe
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Heart of galaxy NGC 1068
Heart of galaxy NGC 1068

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello
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Star trails over Gemini North Telescope
Star trails over Gemini North Telescope

Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA; image by Joy Pollard
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This illustration highlights a newfound small white dwarf that is somewhat larger than Earth's moon.
This illustration highlights a newfound small white dwarf that is somewhat larger than Earth's moon.

Credit: Giuseppe Parisi
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Castle Rock, a natural geologic landmark near McMurdo Station in Antarctica
Castle Rock, a natural geologic landmark near McMurdo Station in Antarctica

Credit: Joshua Swanson; Source: U.S. Antarctic Program photo library
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Image of two black holes merging. Gravitational waves can be seen between the two.
The merging of a pair of binary black holes produced gravitational waves equal to the energy of eight suns, the most massive black hole merger yet observed in gravitational waves.

Credit: Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for GravitationalWave Discovery (OzGrav)/Swinburne University
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a neutron star is hiding deep inside the remains of supernova 1987A
Researchers at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have found evidence that a neutron star is hiding deep inside the remains of supernova 1987A, shown here in an artist's representation.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. Saxton
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The Sgr A* Black Hole for the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
The Sgr A* Black Hole

Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
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Event Horizon Telescope - Our own black hole
Event Horizon Telescope - Our own black hole

Credit: C. Padilla, NRAO/AUI/National Science Foundation
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The Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way Galaxy is seen over the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array west of Socorro, New Mexico.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Jeff Hellerman (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported -- CC BY 3.0).
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Optical image of spiral galaxy NGC 4330
Optical image of spiral galaxy NGC 4330, located in the Virgo Cluster.

Credit: T. Brown; Fossati et al., 2018
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Bright moon illuminates IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory
Bright moon illuminates IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory

Credit: Raffaela Busse; ICECUBE/National Science Foundation
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The Blanco Telescope dome at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, where the Dark Energy Camera used for the recently completed Dark Energy Survey was housed.
The Blanco Telescope dome at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, where the Dark Energy Camera used for the recently completed Dark Energy Survey was housed.

Credit: Reidar Hahn, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
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Blanco 4 meter telescope with Milky Way
Blanco 4 meter telescope with Milky Way

Credit: Dr. Andreas Papadopoulos, AHPC, European University Cyprus
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Hubble ultraviolet image of Jupiter
Hubble ultraviolet image of Jupiter

Credit: NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al. Acknowledgments: M. Zamani (available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)
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Hubble visible-light image of Jupiter
Hubble visible-light image of Jupiter

Credit: NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al. Acknowledgments: M. Zamani (available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)
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Jupiter in infrared light
The entire disk of Jupiter in infrared light was compiled from a mosaic of nine separate pointings.

Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) and team acknowledgments: Mahdi Zamani
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Green Bank Telescope in the summer with a field of flowers in the forefront
Green Bank Telescope in the summer.

Credit: NSF/GBO 20; photo by Jill Malusky
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Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on the summit of Haleakalā on Maui, Hawaii.

Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF
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Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope with blue sky in the background
Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope

Credit: NSF/GBO 20; photo by Jill Malusky (available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
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neutron stars
Artist's impression of the explosion and burst of gravitational waves emitted when a pair of superdense neutron stars collide

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF
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An expanding, ring-shaped cloud of atoms shares several striking features with the early universe.
An expanding, ring-shaped cloud of atoms shares several striking features with the early universe.

Credit: E. Edwards/JQI
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