InSight on a Cloudy Day
4.10.2019

Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on the Mars InSight lander. Of course, InSight's martian day, sol 145, corresponds to Earth calendar date April 25, 2019.

APOD: 2024 April 17 Б Total Eclipse and Comets
17.04.2024

Not one, but two comets appeared near the Sun during last week's total solar eclipse. The expected comet was Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, but it was disappointingly dimmer than many had hoped. However, relatively unknown Comet SOHO-5008 also appeared in long duration camera exposures.

Accretion Disk Simulation
27.09.2002

Don't be fooled by the familiar symmetry. The graceful spiral structure seen in this computer visualization does not portray winding spiral arms in a distant galaxy of stars. Instead, the graphic shows spiral...

Nebulas Surrounding Wolf Rayet Binary BAT99 49
21.04.2004

How could two young stars power these colorful interstellar gas clouds? Although hidden by thick dust, the stars spew forceful ions and energetic radiation that cause the clouds to fragment and light up.

Cassini to Venus
3.07.2004

Saturn Orbiter Cassini with Titan Probe Huygens attached rocketed into early morning skies on October 15, 1997. The mighty Titan 4B Centaur rocket is seen here across the water, arcing away from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Station.

A Swift Look at Tempel 1
3.07.2005

Comet Tempel 1 is targeted for a collision with the impactor probe from NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft at about 1:52am EDT on July 4th (other time zones). Cameras on the impactor probe...

Enceladus Backlit by Saturn
8.02.2012

This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured above is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn's cloud tops.

Yutu Rover Rolls onto the Moon
16.12.2013

A new desk-sized rover has begun exploring the Moon. Launched two weeks ago by the Chinese National Space Administration, the Chang'e 3 spacecraft landed on the Moon yesterday and deployed the robotic rover.

Messier 6 and Comet Siding Spring
17.10.2014

This looks like a near miss but the greenish coma and tail of Comet Siding Spring (C/2013 A1) are really 2,000 light-years or so away from the stars of open cluster Messier 6. They do appear close together though, along the same line-of-sight in this gorgeous October 9th skyscape toward the constellation Scorpius.

APOD: 2026 June 15 Б Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket
15.06.2026

What's happening to this Sun-crossing rocket? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, visible on the upper left, launched only about one minute before this amazing image was captured. As it rose to low Earth...