GOES 16: Moon over Planet Earth
25.01.2017

Launched last November 19 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the satellite now known as GOES-16 can now observe planet Earth from a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. Its Advanced Baseline Imager captured this contrasting view of Earth and a gibbous Moon on January 15.

APOD: 2026 January 26 Б NGC 55: A Galaxy of Nebulas
25.01.2026

Can you see nebulas in other galaxies? Yes, some nebulas shine brightly enough -- if you know how to look. Clouds of hydrogen and oxygen emit light at very specific colors, and by isolating them, astronomers and astrophotographers can reveal structures that would otherwise be too faint to notice.

A Day in the Life of a Human Sundial
11.08.2017

Have you ever wanted to be a gnomon? Of course, a gnomon is the tall part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The gnomon's shadow moves as the Sun moves across the sky, indicating time by the shadow's position on the dial face.

APOD: 2026 April 21 Б Three Sky Arches over Snowy Alps
20.04.2026

Why are there three arches across the sky instead of two? Last month, after being dropped off by a helicopter at a high mountain peak in the Alps near the Swiss Italian border, an adventurous astrophotographer expected two arches of our Milky Way galaxy to be visible during the night.

Unusual Silica Rich Soil Discovered on Mars
17.12.2007

You're rolling across Mars when you unexpectedly uncover some unusually light soil. You stop. You turn. You return to inspect the soil and find out it is almost purely silica -- the main ingredient in quartz and glass. Such soil has never been found on Mars before. What created this soil?

APOD: 2025 January 6 Б Colliding Spiral Galaxies from Webb and Hubble
5.01.2025

Billions of years from now, only one of these two galaxies will remain. Until then, spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 will slowly pull each other apart, creating tides of matter, sheets of shocked gas, lanes of dark dust, bursts of star formation, and streams of cast-away stars.

Mono Lake: Home to the Strange Microbe GFAJ 1
5.12.2010

How strange could alien life be? An indication that the fundamental elements that compose most terrestrial life forms might differ out in the universe was found in unusual Mono Lake in California, USA. Bacteria...

Mars in Taurus
3.03.2021

You can spot Mars in the evening sky tonight. Now home to the Perseverance rover, the Red Planet is presently wandering through the constellation Taurus, close on the sky to the Seven Sisters or Pleiades star cluster.

APOD: 2025 November 24 Б Apep: Unusual Dust Shells from Webb
23.11.2025

What created this unusual space sculpture? Stars. This unusual system of swirls and shells, known as Apep, was observed in unprecedentedбdetail by NASAБs James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light in 2024. Observations indicate...

Gamma Ray Bursts from the Unknown
22.11.1996

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) pose one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy. About once a day, the gamma-ray sky lights up with a spectacular explosion. No one knows what causes these explosions or even how far away they are.