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.

Coronal Rain on the Sun
27.05.2018

Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however, was what happened next.

BATSE GRB Final Sky Map
28.06.2000

What causes the most powerful explosions in the universe? The BATSE modules that flew on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory allowed more insight into enigmatic gamma-ray burst (GRB) explosions than ever before. From 1991-2000, BATSE detected 2704 GRBs, much more than ever previously recorded.

A Mysterious Hexagonal Cloud System on Saturn
3.04.2007

Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is yet sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System.

Signals of a Strange Universe
29.03.2009

Eleven years ago results were first presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space itself. In the language of cosmologists, a large cosmological constant is directly implied by new distant supernovae observations.

A Dark Earth with a Red Sprite
20.12.2015

There is something very unusual in this picture of the Earth -- can you find it? A fleeting phenomenon once thought to be only a legend has been newly caught if you know just where to look.

APOD: 2023 May 16 Б Total Eclipse: The Big Corona
16.05.2023

Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is unparalleled. The human eye can adapt to see coronal features and extent that average cameras usually cannot. Welcome, however, to the digital age.

The Topography of Mars
28.06.2001

Mars has its ups and downs. Visible on the above interactive topographic map of the surface of Mars are giant volcanoes, deep valleys, impact craters, and terrain considered unusual and even mysterious. Particularly notable...

Rumors of a Strange Universe
24.12.2006

Eight years ago results were first presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space itself. In the language of cosmologists, a large cosmological constant is directly implied by new distant supernovae observations.