Aurora Over Clouds
2.04.2001

Aurorae usually occur high above the clouds. The auroral glow is created when fast-moving particles ejected from the Sun impact air molecules high in the Earth's atmosphere. An oxygen molecule, for example, will glow in a green light when reacquiring an electron lost during a collision with a solar particle.

Shelf Cloud Over Saskatchewan
21.01.2008

Perhaps it's time to go inside. Such thoughts might occur to people witnessing the approach of an impressive shelf cloud. Shelf clouds are typically seen leading thunderstorms, although they may precede any well defined front of relatively cold air.

Radio Jupiter
9.10.2003

This view of gas giant Jupiter, made from data recorded at the Very Large Array radio observatory near Socorro, New Mexico, may not look too familiar. In fact, there is no sign of a bright, round planet striped with cloud bands, sporting a Great Red Spot.

A Daylight Eclipse of Venus
20.06.2007

Something was about to happen. Just two days ago, two of the three celestial objects easily visible during the day appeared to collide. But actually, Earth's Moon passed well in front of the distant planet Venus. The occultation was caught from Switzerland in the hours before sunset.

Blue Saturn
10.02.2005

Serene blue hues highlight this view of Saturn's northern hemisphere from the Cassini spacecraft. The image has been adjusted to approximate the natural blue color of visible sunlight scattered by the gas giant's upper atmosphere.

Lightning on Jupiter
12.05.1997

Does lightning occur only on Earth? Spacecraft in our Solar System have detected radio signals consistent with lightning on other planets, including Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In the above photograph, optical flashes from Jupiter were photographed recently by the Galileo orbiter. Each of the circled dots indicates lightning.

Night Lightning on Jupiter
15.12.1997

Why is there lightning on Jupiter? Lightning is a sudden rush of electrically charged particles from one location to another. To create lightning, charges must first separate inside a cloud. On Earth, drafts of colliding ice and water droplets usually create this charge separation, but what happens on Jupiter?

Io s Surface: Under Construction
17.08.2008

Like the downtown area of your favorite city, the roads you drive to work on, and any self-respecting web site ... Io's surface is constantly under construction. This moon of Jupiter holds the distinction of being the Solar System's most volcanically active body -- its bizarre looking surface continuously formed and reformed by lava flows.

Moon And Venus Share The Sky
28.07.2000

July is drawing to a close and in the past few days, some early morning risers could have looked east and seen a crescent Moon sharing the pre-dawn skies with planets Jupiter and Saturn.

Jupiter in Infrared from Gemini
12.05.2020

In infrared, Jupiter lights up the night. Recently, astronomers at the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii, USA, created some of the best infrared photos of Jupiter ever taken from EarthБs surface, pictured. Gemini...