Martian Moon Phobos Crosses the Sun
10.04.2019

What's that passing in front of the Sun? It looks like a moon, but it can't be Earth's Moon, because it isn't round. It's the Martian moon Phobos. The featured video was taken from the surface of Mars late last month by the Curiosity rover.

Landing on Mars: Seven Minutes of Terror
15.02.2021

Starting Thursday, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on things going correctly in the minutes after the Mars 2020 mission arrives at its new home planet and attempts to deploy the Perseverance rover.

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: 2023 April 19 Б Auroral Storm over Lapland
19.04.2023

On some nights the sky is the best show in town. On this night, auroras ruled the sky, and the geomagnetic storm that created this colorful sky show originated from an increasingly active Sun.

APOD: 2024 September 9 Б Mars: Moon, Craters, and Volcanos
9.09.2024

If you could fly over Mars, what might you see? The featured image shows exactly this in the form of a Mars Express vista captured over a particularly interesting region on Mars in July. The picture's most famous feature is Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System, visible on the upper right.

Storm Alley on Saturn
2.11.2004

What causes storms on Saturn? To help find out, scientists commanded the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn to inspect a circulating band of clouds nicknamed "Storm Alley." This westwardly moving cloud ring...

The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean
27.04.2010

What created this strange sound in Earth's Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop, captured by deep sea microphones in 1997. In the above graph, time is shown on the horizontal axis, deep pitch is shown on the vertical axis, and brightness designates loudness.

Saturns Rings from the Dark Side
31.12.2012

What do Saturn's rings look like from the dark side? From Earth, we usually see Saturn's rings from the same side of the ring plane that the Sun illuminates them -- one might call this the bright side.

Jelly Donut Shaped Rock Appears on Mars
29.01.2014

What if a rock that looked like a jelly donut suddenly appeared on Mars? That's just what happened in front of the robotic Opportunity rover currently exploring the red planet. The unexpectedly placed...

The Pleiades Deep and Dusty
14.11.2017

The well-known Pleiades star cluster is slowly destroying part of a passing cloud of gas and dust. The Pleiades is the brightest open cluster of stars on Earth's sky and can be seen from almost any northerly location with the unaided eye.