APOD: 2024 July 29 Б Milky Way over Uluru
28.07.2024

What's happening above Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site, Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings. Composed of sandstone, Uluru has slowly formed over the past 300 million years as softer rock eroded away.

Magnetic Streamlines of the Milky Way
16.06.2020

What role do magnetic fields play in interstellar physics? Analyses of observations by ESA's Planck satellite of emission by small magnetically-aligned dust grains reveal previously unknown magnetic field structures in our Milky Way Galaxy -- as shown by the curvy lines in the featured full-sky image.

The Milky Way over St Michaels Mount
6.09.2020

Where do land and sky converge? On every horizon -- but in this case the path on the ground leads to St Michael's Mount (Cornish: Karrek Loos yn Koos), a small historic island in Cornwall, England. The Mount is usually surrounded by shallow water, but at low tide is spanned by a human-constructed causeway.

Milky Way over Devils Tower
12.04.2022

What created Devils Tower? The origin of this extraordinary rock monolith in Wyoming, USA is still debated, with a leading hypothesis holding that it is a hardened lava plume that never reached the surface to become a volcano.

The Milky Way s Black Hole
12.05.2022

There's a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Stars are observed to orbit a very massive and compact object there known as Sgr A* (say "sadge-ay-star"). But this just released...

APOD: 2024 August 4 Б Gaia: Here Comes the Sun
3.08.2024

What would it look like to return home from outside our galaxy? Although designed to answer greater questions, data from ESA's robotic Gaia mission is helping to provide a uniquely modern perspective on humanity's place in the universe.

APOD: 2025 February 9 Б Milky Way over the Australian Pinnacles
8.02.2025

What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown.

Milky Way over Yellowstone
28.01.2020

The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The pool of vivid blue water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Steam rises off the spring, heated by a magma chamber deep underneath known as the Yellowstone hotspot.

Milky Way and Zodiacal Light over Chile
8.03.2020

What is the band of light connecting the ground to the Milky Way? Zodiacal light -- a stream of dust that orbits the Sun in the inner Solar System. It is most easily seen just before sunrise, where it has been called a false dawn, or just after sunset.

Eye on the Milky Way
20.04.2020

Have you ever had stars in your eyes? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken last July from Ojas de Salar in the Atacama Desert of Chile.