Rays from an Unexpected Aurora
20.11.2005

This aurora was a bit of a surprise. For starters, on this Friday morning in August 2002, no intense auroral activity was expected at all. Possibly more surprising, however, the aurora appeared to show an usual structure of green rays from some locations.

A View from the Zone
7.03.2014

Brilliant Venus and the central Milky Way rise in the early morning hours of March 1 in this sea and skyscape. The scene looks out from a beach at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, USA, planet Earth.

NGC 6334: The Cats Paw Nebula
18.06.2014

Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius.

Pluto at Night
9.06.2016

The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. The spacebased view with the Sun behind the distant world was captured by New Horizons last July. The spacecraft was at a range of over 21,000 kilometers, about 19 minutes after its closest approach.

APOD: 2025 July 12 Б Clouds and the Golden Moon
12.07.2025

As the Sun set, a bright Full Moon rose on July 10. Its golden light illuminates clouds drifting through southern hemisphere skies in this well-composed telephoto image from Conceiццёo do Coitц, Bahia, Brazil. The brightest lunar phase is captured here with both a short and long exposure.

M11: The Wild Duck Cluster
22.01.2003

Many stars like our Sun were formed in open clusters. The above pictured open cluster, M11, contains thousands of stars and is just over five thousand light years distant. The stars in this cluster all formed together about 250 million years ago. The bright young stars in M11 appear blue.

A Milky Way Band
5.06.2005

Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.

The Cats Paw Nebula
28.06.2006

Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius.

STS 115: Stereo Portrait
30.09.2006

On September 12, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper snapped photos of her colleague Joseph Tanner during the STS-115 mission. At the time, the spacesuited pair were working outside the shuttle orbiter Atlantis, some 300 kilometers above planet Earth.

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri
15.06.2011

Featured in this sharp telescopic image, globular star cluster Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is some 15,000 light-years away. Some 150 light-years in diameter, the cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun.