M81: A Bulging Spiral Galaxy
13.07.1996

Few stars are still forming in the old giant spiral galaxy M81. The blue regions in this picture - representing ultraviolet light - highlight regions of bright young stars and star formation and appear rare than in M74 and M33. The red regions - representing the visible light - show a large population of older, less massive stars.

NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula
31.12.2002

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula.

Big Dipper Castle
17.02.2005

The stars of the big dipper, a well known asterism in the constellation Ursa Major, are easy to recognize in this dramatic skyscape. In fact, northern hemisphere skygazers often follow along the line indicated by the two stars at the far right.

A Year of Mars Roving
30.12.2004

Landing on Mars in January, NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity have now each spent over 330 sols roving the martian surface. Still healthy and well in to extended missions, the golfcart sized robots have operated five times longer than planned.

Phoenix Lander Arrives at Mars
25.05.2008

Will Phoenix survive its landing today on Mars? Phoenix's landing sequence will ramp up starting at about 7:30 pm EDT (23:30 UTC) today and last just over an hour. If all goes well, one of Phoenix's first images from Mars will appear on APOD tomorrow.

Planets of the Solar System
24.06.2022

Simultaneous images from four cameras were combined to construct this atmospheric predawn skyscape. The cooperative astro-panorama captures all the planets of the Solar System, just before sunrise on June 24. That foggy morning found innermost planet Mercury close to the horizon but just visible against the twilight, below and left of brilliant Venus.

Bright Stars and Dark Clouds
25.09.1996

Did you ever feel like a black cloud was following you around? Well don't feel bad - this even happened to the bright young stars of the open cluster NGC 6520. On the left are the cluster's bright blue stars.

Brain Crater on Mars
19.05.2004

What caused this unusual looking crater floor on Mars? Appearing at first glance to resemble the human brain, the natural phenomena that created the unusual texture on the floor of this Martian impact crater are currently under investigation. The light colored region surrounding the brain-textured region is likely sand dunes sculpted by winds.

Despina, Moon of Neptune
3.09.2009

Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune. A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter with the solar system's most distant gas giant planet.

Mars: Big Crater in Stereo
30.04.1998

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo picture of "Big Crater" on Mars! (Pieces of red and blue or green clear plastic will do. Your right eye should look through...