Yukon Aurora with Star Trails
11.03.2010

Fixed to a tripod, a camera can record graceful trails traced by stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis. But at high latitudes during March and April, it can also capture an aurora shimmering in the night.

In Green Company: Aurora over Norway
9.11.2020

Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not only cleared up but lit up with a spectacular auroral display.

Clusters, Hartley, and the Heart
14.10.2010

An alluring Comet Hartley 2 cruised through planet Earth's night sky on October 8, passing within about a Full Moon's width of the famous double star cluster in Perseus. The much anticipated...

Mir Over New Zealand
26.10.1996

The Russian space station Mir was photographed last month high above New Zealand. Before returning with record-breaking astronaut Shannon Lucid, the space shuttle Atlantis crew took this breathtaking view from the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis had just undocked from Mir and was preparing to return to Earth.

April s Moon and the Pleiades
14.04.2005

After parting with the Sun late last week, April's moon graced the early evening sky. Its slender, three-day-old crescent shares this lovely telescopic skyview with the nearby Pleiades star cluster. Here, the Moon...

Crescent Mercury in Color
26.01.2008

Hard to spot against the twilight glow near planet Earth's horizon, a crescent Mercury was imaged close up by the MESSENGER spacecraft early last week. Colors in this remarkable picture were created using data recorded through infrared, red, and violet filters.

Haunting the Cepheus Flare
30.10.2008

Spooky shapes seem to haunt this starry expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds faintly visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your...

Five Planets at Castell de Burriac
6.02.2016

February's five planet line-up stretches across a clear sky in this predawn scene. A hilltop Castell de Burriac looms in the foreground, overlooking the town of Cabrera de Mar near Barcelona, Spain, planet Earth. The mosaicked, panoramic image looks south.

Seven Leonids Over Wise Observatory
24.11.1998

More Leonids were visible at some places than others. In Israel, early in the morning of 17 November, it rained meteors though a clear sky. Observers there reported a peak rate for the 1998 Leonid Meteor Shower of about 600 meteors per hour.

Almahata Sitta 15
28.03.2009

Small asteroid 2008 TC3 fell to Earth at dawn on October 7, 2008, tracking through the skies over the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan. That event was remarkable because it was the first time an asteroid was detected in space before crashing into planet Earth's atmosphere.