Planets in the West
24.06.2005

This weekend three planets will grace the western sky, forming a lovely trio easily visible shortly after sunset. Saturday evening in particular will find Saturn, Venus, and Mercury all within a 2 degree circle (about the size of your thumb held at arm's length) above the western horizon.

Star Trails at 19 000 Feet
1.12.2006

In myth, Atlas holds up the heavens, but in this stunning view a mountain appears to serve as the southern night sky pivots around a snowy peak. Recorded during a climbing expedition...

Highest, Tallest, and Closest to the Stars
24.02.2016

Fans of planet Earth probably recognize its highest mountain, the Himalayan Mount Everest, on the left in this 3-panel skyscape of The World at Night. Shrouded in cloud Everest's peak is at 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) elevation above sea level.

Heaven on Earth
22.02.2004

If sometimes it appears that the entire Milky Way Galaxy is raining down on your head, do not despair. It happens twice a day. As the Sun rises in the East, wonders of the night sky become less bright than the sunlight scattered by our own Earth's atmosphere, and so fade from view.

APOD: 2025 October 2 Б Pluto at Night
1.10.2025

The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the stunning spacebased perspective, the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when the spacecraft was at a range of some 21,000 kilometers from Pluto.

Mount Everest Star Trails
30.11.2018

The highest peak on planet Earth is framed in this mountain and night skyscape. On September 30, the digital stack of 240 sequential exposures made with a camera fixed to a tripod at an Everest Base Camp captured the sheer north face of the Himalayan mountain and foreground illuminated by bright moonlight.

Our Story in One Minute
14.11.2012

Could you tell the story of human existence in a minute? This thrilling video culls together multiple teasing snippets in an attempt to do just that. And sets it to music. Briefly depicted, from...

APOD: 2025 October 15 Б Rocket Launch Plume over Tucson
14.10.2025

Yes, but can your sunset do this? Looking west from Tucson, Arizona, USA one day last month, the sunset sky looked strange when it briefly lit up with the plume of a rocket launched from California a few minutes earlier.

A Meteor Moment
16.12.2010

Intensely bright, this fireball meteor flashed through Tuesday's cold, clear, early morning skies over the Karakas Mountains in central Iran, near the peak of the annual Geminid Meteor Shower. To capture the meteor moment and wintery night skyscape, the photographer's camera was fixed to a tripod, its shutter open for about 1.5 minutes.

The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies
25.10.2004

Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of the fuzzy blobs in the above picture is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies.