Aurora Over RaufarhЖfn
30.04.2012

It was all lined up even without the colorful aurora exploding overhead. If you follow the apex line of the recently deployed monuments of Arctic Henge in RaufarhЖfn in northern Iceland from this vantage point, you will see that they point due north.

AR1520: Islands in the Photosphere
14.07.2012

Awash in a sea of plasma and anchored in magnetic fields, sunspots are planet-sized, dark islands in the solar photosphere, the bright surface of the Sun. Dark because they are slightly cooler than the surrounding surface, this group of sunspots is captured in a close-up telescopic snapshot from July 11.

CMB Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
15.06.2014

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 of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula
14.09.2014

The first hint of what will become of our Sun was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets.

The Helix Nebula from Blanco and Hubble
12.10.2014

How did a star create the Helix nebula? The shapes of planetary nebula like the Helix are important because they likely hold clues to how stars like the Sun end their lives. Observations...

Eros At Sunset
24.08.2000

Gleaming in the rays of the setting sun, boulders litter the rugged surface of asteroid 433 Eros. The brightest boulder, at the edge of the large, shadowy crater near this picture's bottom center, is about 30 meters (100 feet) across.

Moonrise, Cape Sounion, Greece
23.06.2005

The Moon was full this month on June 22nd, only a day after the northern hemisphere's summer solstice. Since this solstice marked the northernmost point of the Sun's annual motion through planet...

The Belt of Venus Over Mercedes Argentina
7.02.2012

Although you've surely seen it, you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight, just before sunrise or after sunset, part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears slightly off-color, slightly pink or orange.

Full Moon in Mountain Shadow
21.10.2016

On October 15, standing near the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea and looking away from a gorgeous sunset produced this magnificent snapshot of a Full Moon rising within the volcanic mountain's shadow. An alignment across the Solar System is captured in the stunning scene and seeming contradiction of bright Moon in dark shadow.

IC 1805: The Heart Nebula
11.09.2019

What energizes the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all powered by a small group of stars near the nebula's center.