A Supercell Storm Cloud Forming over Wyoming
21.05.2014

How do supercell storm clouds form? Pictured above is a time-lapse video taken last Sunday detailing the formation of one such violent supercell in eastern Wyoming, USA. Starting as part of a large and dark thunderstorm complex, the supercell comes together along with a large rotating updraft of air known as a mesocyclone.

Comet 67P from Spacecraft Rosetta
2.02.2016

Spacecraft Rosetta continues to circle and map Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Crossing the inner Solar System for ten years to reach the vicinity of the comet in 2014, the robotic spacecraft continues to image the unusual double-lobed comet nucleus. The featured image, taken one year ago, shows dust and gas escaping from the comet's nucleus.

The International Space Station over Earth
18.04.2016

The International Space Station is the largest object ever constructed by humans in space. The station perimeter extends over roughly the area of a football field, although only a small fraction of this is composed of modules habitable by humans.

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
1.01.2019

This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

A Falcon 9 Nebula
4.09.2021

Not the Hubble Space Telescope's latest view of a distant galactic nebula, this illuminated cloud of gas and dust dazzled early morning spacecoast skygazers on August 29. The snapshot was taken at 3:17am from Space View Park in Titusville, Florida.

Find the Man in the Moon
12.06.2022

Have you ever seen the Man in the Moon? This common question plays on the ability of humans to see pareidolia -- imagining familiar icons where they don't actually exist. The textured surface...

The Protostars within Lynds 483
13.03.2025

Two protostars are hidden in a single pixel near the center of a striking hourglass-shaped nebula in this near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The actively forming star system lies in a dusty molecular cloud cataloged as Lynds 483, some 650 light-years distant toward the constellation Serpens Cauda.

The Great Nebula in Orion
13.02.2002

Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away.

Tonight: A Total Lunar Eclipse
26.09.1996

Tonight brings the last total lunar eclipse visible from North America until the year 2000 - with the Moon becoming completely immersed in Earth's shadow. The above time-lapse photograph shows a lunar eclipse that occurred in April 1993.

Orion's Horsehead Nebula
2.10.1996

The Horsehead Nebula is arguably the most famous nebula on the sky. It is visible as the black indentation to the red emission nebula seen just to the right of center of the above photograph. The bright star near the center is located in the belt of the familiar constellation of Orion.