APOD: 2024 April 7 Б A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming
7.04.2024

Will the sky be clear enough to see the eclipse? This question is already on the minds of many North Americans hoping to see tomorrow's solar eclipse. This question was also on the mind of many people attempting to see the total solar eclipse that crossed North America in August 2017.

APOD: 2024 December 10 Б The Great Meteor Storm of 1833
10.12.2024

It was a night of 100,000 meteors. The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was perhaps the most impressive meteor event in recent history. Best visible over eastern North America during the pre-dawn hours...

Annular Eclipse: The Ring of Fire
10.06.2002

Today, a few lucky people will see a "ring of fire." That's a name for the central view of an annular eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. At the peak of this...

How to Search for Aliens
17.05.1999

"Mom, can I use our computer to search for aliens?" Last week, the SETI@home project released free software that enables many home computers to search for signals from intelligent extra-terrestrials. These signals may have already been detected by the huge Arecibo radio telescope

APOD: 2020 September 2 Б Jupiter and the Moons
2.09.2020

How many moons do you see? Many people would say one, referring to the Earth's Moon, prominent on the lower left. But take a closer look at the object on the upper right.

APOD: 2024 June 2 Б Rotating Moon from LRO
2.06.2024

No one, presently, sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Earth's moon is tidally locked to the Earth, showing us only one side. Given modern digital technology, however, combined with many detailed images returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a high resolution virtual Moon rotation movie has been composed.

BATSE GRB Final Sky Map
28.06.2000

What causes the most powerful explosions in the universe? The BATSE modules that flew on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory allowed more insight into enigmatic gamma-ray burst (GRB) explosions than ever before. From 1991-2000, BATSE detected 2704 GRBs, much more than ever previously recorded.

APOD Turns 17
16.06.2012

The first APOD appeared seventeen years ago today, on 1995 June 16. Although garnering only 14 page views on that day, we are proud to estimate that APOD has now served over one billion space-related images over the last 1.7 decades.

Earthset from Orion
24.01.2026

Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the Artemis I mission, their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft.

Full Moon Silhouettes
7.09.2014

Have you ever watched the Moon rise? The slow rise of a nearly full moon over a clear horizon can be an impressive sight. One impressive moonrise was imaged in early 2013 over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand.