COBE Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
5.02.1996

Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

Comet PanSTARRs and the Galaxies
6.06.2020

Comet PanSTARRs, C/2017 T2, shared this stunning telescopic field of view with galaxies M81 and M82 on May 22/23. Of course, the galaxies were some 12 million light-years distant and the comet about 14 light-minutes away, seen in planet Earth's sky toward the Big Dipper.

Find the New Moon
25.07.2022

Can you find the Moon? This usually simple task can be quite difficult. Even though the Moon is above your horizon half of the time, its phase can be anything from crescent to full.

APOD: 2026 July 18 БShadow and Rainbow
18.07.2026

At sunset, an alignment of rainbow and mountain shadow was captured in this remarkable snapshot. The stunning view was recorded from a fire lookout on Smith Peak in the Plumas National Forest near Portola, California on July 13.

Free Floating Planets In Orion
31.03.2000

This false-colour image of the young Trapezium star cluster in the Orion Nebula was made with an infrared camera at wavelengths about twice as long as visible light. The infrared data are part...

Eclipse in the Mist
4.06.2003

The Sun and Moon rose together over much of Europe on the morning of May 31st with the first solar eclipse of 2003 already in progress. And while sightings of the full annular phase...

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse
16.02.1997

Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like "beetle juice"), a red supergiant star about 600 light years distant, is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image -- the first direct picture of the surface of a star other than the Sun. A bright, as yet unexplained hotspot is revealed on its surface!

Unexpected Comet Pojmanski Now Visible
6.03.2006

Have you ever seen a comet? Comets bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye appear only every few years. Right now, however, a new comet has brightened unexpectedly and is visible as a faint streak to the unaided northern observer in the eastern morning sky just before sunrise. Binoculars may help.

A Split Ion Tail for Comet Lovejoy E4
25.04.2017

What's happened to Comet Lovejoy? In the pictured image, a processed composite, the comet was captured early this month after brightening unexpectedly and sporting a long and intricate ion tail. Remarkably, the typically...

Second Millennium, Last Eclipse
5.01.2001

Christmas Day 2000 featured the final eclipse of the Second Millennium -- a partial solar eclipse visible from much of North America. Astrophotographer Phil Rau recorded the entire event on a single image as the Sun and Moon arced through winter skies above Cary, North Carolina, USA.