The View from Stereo Ahead
22.12.2006

On December 22nd, at 0022 Universal Time the Sun reached its southernmost point in Earth's sky marking the final season change for the year 2006. In celebration of the Solstice, consider these images of the Sun from an extreme ultraviolet telescope onboard the Stereo Ahead spacecraft.

IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula
17.01.2012

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is associated with the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion.

Partial Solar Eclipse with Airplane
13.05.2013

It was just eight minutes after sunrise, last week, and already there were four things in front of the Sun. The largest and most notable was Earth's Moon, obscuring a big chunk of the Sun's lower limb as it moved across the solar disk, as viewed from Fremantle, Australia.

The Missing Craters of Asteroid Itokawa
9.02.2014

Where are the craters on asteroid Itokawa? Missing -- unexpectedly. The Japanese robot probe Hayabusa approached the Earth-crossing asteroid in 2005 and returned pictures showing a surface unlike any other Solar System body yet photographed -- a surface possibly devoid of craters.

Little Planet Astro Camp
2.09.2016

Day and night on this little planet look a lot like day and night on planet Earth. In fact, the images used to construct the little planet projection, a digitally warped and stitched mosaic covering 360x180 degrees, were taken during day and night near Tarján, Hungary, planet Earth.

Phaethon s Brood
23.12.2017

Based on its well-measured orbit, 3200 Phaethon (sounds like FAY-eh-thon) is recognized as the source of the meteroid stream responsible for the annual Geminid meteor shower. Even though most meteor showers' parents are comets, 3200 Phaethon is a known and closely tracked near-Earth asteroid with a 1.4 year orbital period.

The Witch Head Nebula
31.12.2018

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble .... maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. A frighteningly shaped reflection nebula, this cosmic crone is about 800 light-years away though. Its malevolent visage seems to glare toward nearby bright star Rigel in Orion, just off the right edge of this frame.

Robotic Dragonfly Selected to Fly Across Titan
3.07.2019

If you could fly across Titan, what would you see? To find out and to better explore this exotic moon of Saturn, NASA recently green-lighted Dragonfly, a mission to Titan with plans to deploy a helicopter-like drone.

Skygazers on the Beach
13.10.2018

Kona, a young boxer, is a dog who loves splashing in the waves along Solana Beach near San Diego, planet Earth. But he paused here, at least briefly, during an early evening romp on October 7.

A Close Up of Aurora on Jupiter
19.12.2000

Jupiter has aurorae. Like Earth, the magnetic field of the gas giant funnels charged particles released from the Sun onto the poles. As these particles strike the atmosphere, electrons are temporarily knocked away from existing gas molecules. Electric force attracts these electrons back. As the electrons recombine to remake neutral molecules, auroral light is emitted.