The Shadow of Surveyor 1
4.06.2016

Fifty years ago, Surveyor 1 reached the Moon. Launched on May 30, 1966 and landed on June 2, 1966 with the Moon at full phase it became the first US spacecraft to make a soft landing on another world.

Supermoon and Space Station
14.11.2016

What are those specks in front of the Moon? They are silhouettes of the International Space Station (ISS). Using careful planning and split-second timing, a meticulous lunar photographer captured ten images of the ISS passing in front of last month's full moon.

Soyuz vs Supermoon
17.11.2016

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, this Soyuz rocket stands on the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 14.

Apollo 17: A Stereo View from Lunar Orbit
17.01.2020

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this awesome stereo view of another world. The scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972, one orbit before descending to land on the Moon.

Philadelphia Perigee Full Moon
18.11.2016

A supermoon sets over the metropolis of Philadelphia in this twilight snapshot captured on November 14 at 6:21am Eastern Standard Time. Within hours of the Moon's exact full phase, that time does correspond to a lunar perigee or the closest point in the Moon's elliptical orbit around our fair planet.

The Lunar X
10.12.2016

The striking X appearing in this lunarscape is easily visible in binoculars or a small telescope. Yet, not too many have seen it. The catch is this lunar X is fleeting, only apparent in the hours before the Moon's first quarter phase.

Craters and Shadows at the Lunar Terminator
22.05.2018

Why does the right part of this image of the Moon stand out? Shadows. The terminator line -- the line between light and dark -- occurs in the featured image so that just over half the Moon's face is illuminated by sunlight.

Colors of the Moon
15.05.2022

What color is the Moon? It depends on the night. Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth's atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different.

Direct Projection: The Moon in My Hands
28.02.2022

You don't have to look through a telescope to know where it's pointing. Allowing the telescope to project its image onto a large surface can be useful because it dilutes the intense brightness of very bright sources. Such dilution is useful for looking at the Sun, for example during a solar eclipse.

Tycho and Clavius at Dawn
16.07.2022

South is up in this dramatic telescopic view of the lunar terminator and the Moon's rugged southern highlands. The lunar landscape was captured on July 7 with the moon at its first quarter phase.