A Flight of Helios
24.07.2011

An example of solar-powered flight, NASA's Helios aircraft flew almost one hundred years after the Wright brothers' historic flight on December 17, 1903. Pictured here at 3,000 meters in in skies northwest of Kauai, Hawaii, USA in August 2001, the remotely piloted Helios is traveling at about 40 kilometers per hour.

The Cloudy Cores of Active Galaxies
24.02.2014

What would it look like to travel to the center of an active galaxy? Most galactic centers are thought to house black holes millions of times more massive than our Sun. The spaces surrounding...

The Andromeda Galaxy in Ultraviolet
18.07.2021

What does the Andromeda galaxy look like in ultraviolet light? Young blue stars circling the galactic center dominate. A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go.

The Tarantula Nebula from SuperBIT
27.04.2023

The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is more than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 160 thousand light-years away, it's the largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies.

APOD: 2024 May 8 Б Visualization: A Black Hole Accretion Disk
8.05.2024

What would it look like to circle a black hole? If the black hole was surrounded by a swirling disk of glowing and accreting gas, then the great gravity of the black hole would deflect light emitted by the disk to make it look very unusual. The featured animated video gives a visualization.

APOD: 2026 June 4 Б A Planetary Nebula with Cosmic Buckyballs
4.06.2026

What is happening inside this unusual nebula? Planetary nebula Tc 1, captured here in exquisite detail by the James Webb Space Telescope, is the celestial site where buckyballs were first identified in 2010. Buckminsterfullerene...

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
18.08.2001

Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may well...

The Colors and Mysteries of Centaurus A
12.08.2002

Why is spiral galaxy Centaurus A in so much turmoil? The above composite image shows different clues to the unusual galaxy's past in different bands of light. In low energy radio waves, shown in red, lobes across the thick swath of dust glow brightly.

Melting Snow and the Gullies of Mars
21.02.2003

Tantalizing images of gullies on Mars have offered striking evidence for recent flows of liquid water. But Mars is too cold and its atmosphere too thin for liquid water to exist on the surface.

Massive Stars of 30 Doradus
22.06.2003

In the center of star-forming region 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars and part of the surrounding nebula are captured here in this gorgeous visible-light Hubble Space Telescope image.