Crossing Horizons
25.11.2017

Follow this vertical panoramic view from horizon to horizon and your gaze will sweep through the zenith of a dark night sky over Pic du Midi mountaintop observatory. To make the journey above...

APOD: 2023 December 19 Б NGC 1499: The California Nebula
19.12.2023

Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula.

A December Summer Night
23.12.2023

Colours of a serene evening sky are captured in this 8 minute exposure, made near this December's solstice from New Zealand, southern hemisphere, planet Earth. Looking south, star trails form the short concentric arcs around the rotating planet's south celestial pole positioned just off the top of the frame.

APOD: 2025 January 19 Б Titan Touchdown: Huygens Descent Movie
19.01.2025

What would it look like to land on Saturn's moon Titan? The European Space Agency's Huygens probe set down on the Solar System's cloudiest moon in 2005, and a time-lapse video of its descent images was created.

The Center of Centaurus A
21.04.2002

A fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, gigantic glowing gas clouds, and imposing dark dust lanes surrounds the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. This mosaic of Hubble Space Telescope images taken in blue, green, and red light has been processed to present a natural color picture of this cosmic maelstrom.

Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images
7.08.2004

What are those strange blue objects? Many are images of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster galaxies here appear yellow and -- together with the cluster's dark matter -- act as a gravitational lens.

When Gemini Sends Stars to Paranal
13.12.2015

From a radiant point in the constellation of the Twins, the annual Geminid meteor shower rain down on planet Earth. Tonight, the Geminds reach their peak and could be quite spectacular. The featured blended image, however, captured the shower's impressive peak in the year 2012.

The Eagle and The Swan
24.08.2017

The Eagle Nebula and the Swan Nebula span this broad starscape, a telescopic view toward the Sagittarius spiral arm and the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Eagle, also known as M16, is at top and M17, the Swan, at bottom of the frame showing the cosmic clouds as brighter regions of active star-formation.

The Ion Tail of New Comet SWAN
29.04.2020

Newly discovered Comet SWAN has already developed an impressive tail. The comet came in from the outer Solar System and has just passed inside the orbit of the Earth. Officially designated C/2020 F8 (SWAN)...

Magnetic Streamlines of the Milky Way
17.06.2020

What role do magnetic fields play in interstellar physics? Analyses of observations by ESA's Planck satellite of emission by small magnetically-aligned dust grains reveal previously unknown magnetic field structures in our Milky Way Galaxy -- as shown by the curvy lines in the featured full-sky image.