Descending Toward Asteroid Bennu
12.10.2020

What would it be like to land on an asteroid? Although no human has yet done it, NASA's robotic OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to attempt to touch the surface of asteroid 101955 Bennu next week.

APOD: 2024 June 30 Б Earthrise: A Video Reconstruction
30.06.2024

About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8.

APOD: 2025 May 11 Б The Surface of Venus from Venera 14
11.05.2025

If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 14, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982.

ESO 184 G82: and the Supernova Gamma Ray Burst Connection
28.02.2002

Modern astronomers keep a long list of things that go bump in the night. Near the top are supernovae - the death explosions of massive stars, and gamma-ray bursts - the most powerful explosions seen across the Universe.

The Galactic Center from Radio to X ray
31.03.2020

In how many ways does the center of our Galaxy glow? This enigmatic region, about 26,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius), glows in every type of light that we can see.

APOD: 2023 June 30 Б Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
30.06.2023

Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however, humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those asteroids that may one day affect life on Earth.

Kitt Peak National Observatory
18.01.1999

At the top of Kitt Peak Mountain near Tucson, Arizona lies one of the world's great collections of telescopes. As pictured, in the dome at the far left lies the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope, famous recently for tracking distant supernovae.

Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturns Enceladus
27.04.2020

How will humanity first learn of extraterrestrial life? One possibility is to find it under the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. A reason to think that life may exist there are long features -- dubbed tiger stripes -- that are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space.

APOD: 2023 September 10 Б An Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico
10.09.2023

What is this person doing? In 2012, an annular eclipse of the Sun was visible over a narrow path that crossed the northern Pacific Ocean and several western US states. In an annular solar...

Gamma Rays from Galactic Center Dark Matter
10.03.2014

What is creating the gamma rays at the center of our Galaxy? Excitement is building that one answer is elusive dark matter. Over the past few years the orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has been imaging our Galaxy's center in gamma-rays.