Planet Earth at Twilight
27.12.2024

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight.

APOD: 2024 May 29 Б Stairway to the Milky Way
29.05.2024

What happens if you ascend this stairway to the Milky Way? Before answering that, let's understand the beautiful sky you will see. Most eye-catching is the grand arch of the Milky Way Galaxy...

Aristarchus Plateau
30.11.2007

Anchored in the vast lava flows of the Moon's Oceanus Procellarum lies the Aristarchus Plateau. The bright impact crater at the corner of the plateau is Aristarchus, a young crater 42 kilometers wide and 3 kilometers deep. Only slightly smaller, lava flooded Herodotus crater is above and to the left.

Easter Island Eclipse
14.07.2010

Makemake, a god in Easter Island mythology, may have smiled for a moment as clouds parted long enough to reveal this glimpse of July 11's total solar eclipse to skygazers. In the foreground...

A Partial Eclipse Over Manila Bay
28.01.2009

What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! Two days ago, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In particular the above image, taken from the Mall of Asia seawall, caught a partially eclipsed Sun setting over Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Ganymede: The Largest Moon
14.05.2017

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges.

Ring of Fire over Easter Island
11.10.2024

The second solar eclipse of 2024 began in the Pacific. On October 2nd the Moon's shadow swept from west to east, with an annular eclipse visible along a narrow antumbral shadow path tracking...

Galaxies in Space
8.03.2025

The plane of our Milky Way galaxy extends beyond the limb of planet Earth in this space age exposure captured by astronaut Don Pettit. His camera, with low light and long duration settings, was pointed out the window of a Dragon crew spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on January 29.

Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico
29.08.2005

Where will Hurricane Katrina go? One of the stronger storm systems of modern times appears headed for landfall somewhere in the southern USA sometime today. Katrina was designated yesterday a rare Category 5 Hurricane, the strongest designation for a storm on Earth, and one that indicates sustained winds greater than 250 kilometers per hour.

Madagascar Totality
26.07.2001

When the Moon's shadow reached out and touched Earth's southern hemisphere on 2001 June 21, the first total solar eclipse of the 21st century began. Starting in the Atlantic, the dark, central...