Columbia Waits, Discovery Launches
8.08.1995

Space Shuttle Discovery launches while the Space Shuttle Columbia is readied for a future mission. Space shuttles are launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At this date there are four operating space shuttles: Atlantis, Columbia, Discovery, and Endeavour. This mission is most famous for carrying the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.

A Swift Look at Tempel 1
3.07.2005

Comet Tempel 1 is targeted for a collision with the impactor probe from NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft at about 1:52am EDT on July 4th (other time zones). Cameras on the impactor probe...

LIGO Virgo GW170814 Skymap
28.09.2017

From around planet Earth three gravitational wave detectors have now reported a joint detection of ripples in spacetime, the fourth announced detection of a binary black hole merger in the distant Universe. The event...

The Known Universe
20.01.2010

What would it look like to travel across the known universe? To help humanity visualize this, the American Museum of Natural History has produced a modern movie featuring many visual highlights of such a trip.

COBE Hotspots: The Oldest Structures Known
6.02.1996

Above are two microwave images of the sky, looking north and south of our galaxy's equator, based on data from NASA's COBE satellite. After computer processing to remove contributions from nearby objects and the effects of the earth's motion, they show "spots".

I Zwicky 18: Young Galaxy
3.12.2004

The Milky Way is an ordinary 12 billion year old spiral galaxy, and even our middle-aged Sun is pushing 4.5 billion years. But all the stars in dwarf galaxy I Zwicky 18 are much younger.

Comet Hyakutake's Orbit
14.03.1996

Where did Comet Hyakutake come from? The orbits of the Earth and this brightening comet are shown in the above diagram. The blue disk is bounded by the circular orbit of the Earth about the central Sun. The comet's path outlines the green shape.

In the Center of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3521
30.11.2015

This huge swirling mass of stars, gas, and dust occurs near the center of a nearby spiral galaxy. Gorgeous spiral NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years distant, toward the constellation Leo. Spanning some 50,000 light-years, its central region is shown in this dramatic image, constructed from data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Simulation: A Disk Galaxy Forms
17.07.2012

How do galaxies like our Milky Way form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. Green depicts (mostly) hydrogen gas in the above movie, while time is shown in billions of years since the Big Bang on the lower right.

APOD is Two Years Old Today
16.06.1997

The first Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) appeared two years ago today. Pictured above is a scene surrounding the creation of an early APOD, depicting the famous astronomer Tycho Brahe demonstrating a celestial globe to Emperor Rudolph II. The image of a possible optical counterpart to a gamma-ray burst appears on the back wall.