Jupiter Rotates
25.10.2021

Observe the graceful twirl of our Solar System's largest planet. Many interesting features of Jupiter's enigmatic atmosphere, including dark belts and light zones, can be followed in detail. A careful inspection will reveal that different cloud layers rotate at slightly different speeds.

Blood Moon, Ice Giant
10.11.2022

On November 8 the Full Moon turned blood red as it slid through Earth's shadow in a beautiful total lunar eclipse. During totality it also passed in front of, or occulted, outer planet Uranus for eclipse viewers located in parts of northern America and Asia.

APOD: 2023 October 3 Б MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
2.10.2023

Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its center. Either way, the sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula.

APOD: 2023 December 5 Б Energetic Particle Strikes the Earth
4.12.2023

It was one of the most energetic particles ever known to strike the Earth -- but where did it come from? Dubbed Amaterasu after the Shinto sun goddess, this particle, as do all cosmic rays...

LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion
21.01.2026

The silhouette of an intriguing dark nebula inhabits this cosmic scene. Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in long telescopic exposures of the region. In contrast, a brighter reflection nebula, vdB 62, is more easily seen just above the dusty dark nebula.

APOD: 2026 August 4 Б Curious Cometary Knots in the Helix Nebula
3.08.2026

What causes unusual knots of gas and dust in planetary nebulas? Seen also in the Ring Nebula, the Dumbbell Nebula and NGC 2392, the knots' existence was not initially predicted, and their origins are still not well understood.

N49's Cosmic Blast
5.03.2004

Scattered debris from a cosmic supernova explosion lights up the sky in this gorgeous composited image based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Cataloged as N49, these glowing filaments of shocked gas span about 30 light-years in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

NGC 1427A: Galaxy in Motion
3.03.2005

In this tantalizing image, young blue star clusters and pink star-forming regions abound in NGC 1427A, a galaxy in motion. The small irregular galaxy's swept back outline points toward the top of this...

Crab Nebula Mosaic from HST
1.12.2005

The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the cosmic Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star.

GLIMPSE the Milky Way
15.12.2005

Scroll right and gaze through the dusty plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in infrared light. The cosmic panorama is courtesy of the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) project and the Spitzer Space Telescope.