Auroral Substorm over Yellowknife
25.03.2011

Intense auroral activity flooded the night with shimmering colors on February 24, captured here from a lodge near the city of Yellowknife in northern Canada. The stunning sequence (left to right) of three all-sky exposures, taken at 30 second intervals, shows rapid changes in dancing curtains of northern lights against a starry background.

Spitzer s Orion
17.09.2011

Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This stunning false-color view spans about 40 light-years across the region, constructed using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

NGC 2170: Celestial Still Life
6.03.2012

Is this a painting or a photograph? In this beautiful celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines near the image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars...

Lick Observatory Moonrise
10.03.2012

As viewed from a well chosen location at sunset, the gorgeous Full Moon rose behind Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California on March 7. The lunar disk frames historic Lick Observatory perched on the mountain's 4,200 foot summit.

Spitzer s Orion
15.01.2014

Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This stunning false-color view spans about 40 light-years across the region, constructed using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Close up of the Bubble Nebula
3.04.2016

It's the bubble versus the cloud. NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive central star BD+602522. Next door, though, lives a giant molecular cloud, visible to the right. At this place in space, an irresistible force meets an immovable object in an interesting way.

A First Glimpse of the Great American Eclipse
1.09.2017

Making landfall in Oregon, the Moon's dark umbral shadow toured the United States on August 21. Those gathered along its coast to coast path were witness to a total eclipse of the Sun, possibly the most widely shared celestial event in history.

Meteor before Galaxy
12.08.2018

What's that green streak in front of the Andromeda galaxy? A meteor. While photographing the Andromeda galaxy in 2016, near the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, a sand-sized rock from deep space crossed right in front of our Milky Way Galaxy's far-distant companion.

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri
28.03.2024

Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139, is 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter.

APOD: 2024 December 23 Б Christmas Tree Aurora
23.12.2024

It was December and the sky lit up like a Christmas tree. Shimmering, the vivid green, blue, and purple auroral colors that formed the tree-like apparition were caused by high atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons.