Voyager at 90 AU
20.11.2003

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now about 12 light-hours or 90 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, making this spacecraft humanity's most distant ambassador to the cosmos. Well beyond the orbits...

Black Holes in Merging Galaxies
29.05.2010

Violent galaxy mergers can feed supermassive black holes. Theoretically, the result is intense emission from regions near the supermassive black holes, creating the some of the most luminous objects in the universe. Astronomers dub these Active Galactic Nuclei, or just AGN.

Islands of Four Mountains from Above
22.06.2010

Our Earth is covered by volcanoes. Volcanoes are breaks in the Earth's cool surface where hot liquid rock from the interior comes out -- sometimes suddenly. In the above image from the ASTER camera...

Gibbous Europa
30.01.2011

Although the phase of this moon might appear familiar, the moon itself might not. In fact, this gibbous phase shows part of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003.

Jupiters Great Red Spot from Voyager 1
18.05.2014

What will become of Jupiter's Great Red Spot? Recorded as shrinking since the 1930s, the rate of the Great Red Spot's size appears to have accelerated just in the past few years. A hurricane larger than Earth, the Great Red Spot has been raging at least as long as telescopes could see it.

Apollo 17: The Crescent Earth
29.04.2021

Our fair planet sports a curved, sunlit crescent against the black backdrop of space in this stunning photograph. From the unfamiliar perspective, the Earth is small and, like a telescopic image of a distant planet, the entire horizon is completely within the field of view.

X Ray Rings Around a Gamma Ray Burst
17.10.2022

Why would x-ray rings appear around a gamma-ray burst? The surprising answer has little to do with the explosion itself but rather with light reflected off areas of dust-laden gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

APOD: 2026 August 11 Б Six Moons of Saturn
11.08.2026

How many moons does Saturn have? While the total will likely continue to grow, as of June 2026 the ringed gas giant had 293 confirmed moons. That's easily more than any other planet of the Solar System, including ruling gas giant Jupiter with a mere 115 confirmed moons.

Apollo 12: Stereo View Near Surveyor Crater
21.04.2001

This weekend's stereo picture finds Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad standing on the lunar surface near the southern rim of Surveyor Crater in November of 1969. With red/blue glasses you can gaze beyond the spacesuited Conrad across the magnificent desolation of the Moon's Ocean of Storms.

Mir is 10
10.03.1996

The first module of the Russian Space Agency's Mir Space Station was launched into orbit 10 years ago (on February 20, 1986). Mir has since been substantially expanded in orbit by adding additional modules including the Kvant Astrophysics Module (1987) and recently a docking module.