The Full Moon
19.04.1999

Earth has one moon. A symbol in famous love songs, movies, poems, and folklore, many myths about the Moon date back to ancient history. In fact, the name Monday originates from Moon-day. The Moon glows by light it reflects from the Sun and is frequently the brightest object in the night sky.

Venusian Volcano Imagined
26.10.2020

What would an erupting volcano on Venus look like? Evidence of currently active volcanoes on Venus was announced earlier this year with the unexplained warmth of regions thought to contain only ancient volcanoes. Although...

Deepscape at Yacoraite
7.05.2021

In this evocative night scene a dusty central Milky Way rises over the ancient Andean archaeological site of Yacoraite in northwestern Argentina. The denizens of planet Earth reaching skyward are the large Argentine saguaro cactus currently native to the arid region.

The Horsehead Nebula Region without Stars
28.08.2022

The famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion is not alone. A deep exposure shows that the dark familiar shaped indentation, visible just right of center, is part of a vast complex of absorbing dust and glowing gas.

NGC 6712: Galactic Globular Cluster
24.02.1999

Following orbits which loop high above the galactic plane, globular star clusters are probably 12 to 14 billion years old - truly ancient denizens of our Milky Way Galaxy. After analyzing these new ESO/VLT images...

Comet 45P Returns
1.01.2017

An old comet has returned to the inner Solar System. Not only is Comet 45P/HondaMrkosPajduАkovА physically ancient, it was first discovered 13 orbits ago in 1948. Comet 45P spends most of its time out near the orbit of Jupiter and last neared the Sun in 2011.

A Meteor Wind over Tunisia
15.08.2022

Does the Earth ever pass through a wind of meteors? Yes, and they are frequently visible as meteor showers. Almost all meteors are sand-sized debris that escaped from a Sun-orbiting comet or asteroid, debris that continues in an elongated orbit around the Sun.

Sol 4: Mars Color Panorama
9.07.1997

These mosaicked images form a color panorama of the region immediately surrounding the Sagan Memorial Station on Mars. The most recent images were recorded on Sol 4 - the 4th day of operations on the martian surface. The composite view reveals the reddish soil and rock-strewn terrain of an ancient martian flood channel.

Mysterious White Rock Fingers on Mars
7.04.2008

What caused this unusual white rock formation on Mars? Intrigued by the possibility that they could be salt deposits left over as an ancient lakebed dried-up, detailed studies of these fingers now indicate that this is not correct.

Lyrid Meteor and Milky Way
1.05.2009

On April 22nd, the Lyrid Meteor Shower visited planet Earth's sky, an annual shower produced as the Earth plows through dust from the tail of comet Thatcher. Usually Lyrid meteor watchers see only a drizzle.