Interplanetary Earth
22.11.2024

In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured...

The Brown Dwarfs of Orions Trapezium
30.08.2000

The bright stars above are well known as heart of the Trapezium, an open cluster of stars in the center of the Orion Nebula. The many dim objects, however, are not well known, and have come to attention only on recent images in infrared light.

Island Universe, Cosmic Sand
2.08.2003

On August 13, 2002, while counting Perseid meteors under dark, early morning Arizona skies, Rick Scott set out to photograph their fleeting but fiery trails. The equipment he used included a telephoto lens and fast color film. After 21 pictures he'd caught only two meteors, but luckily this was one of them.

3C 295: X-rays From A Giant Galaxy
24.11.1999

Did this galaxy eat too much? Five billion light-years away, the giant elliptical galaxy 3C295 is a prodigious source of energy at radio wavelengths. Bright knots of X-ray emission are also seen at the center of this false-color Chandra Observatory image of the region.

Mare Orientale
11.03.2011

Shaped like a target ring bull's-eye, the Mare Orientale is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. Located on the Moon's extreme western edge, it is unfortunately difficult to see from an earthbound perspective.

Mystery Feature Now Disappears in Titan Lake
6.03.2016

What is that changing object in a cold hydrocarbon sea of Titan? Radar images from the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn have been recording the surface of the cloud-engulfed moon Titan for years. When...

Mercury and Crescent Moon Set
14.04.2016

Innermost planet Mercury and a thin crescent Moon are never found far from the Sun in planet Earth's skies. Taken near dusk on April 8, this colorful evening skyscape shows them both setting toward the western horizon just after the Sun.

A Beautiful Trifid
19.10.2017

The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane...

Hayabusa2 Approaches Asteroid Ryugu
24.06.2018

It looks like a big space diamond -- but with craters. It's 162173 Ryugu (Dragon's Castle), and Japan's robotic Hayabusa2 mission is now arriving at this near-Earth asteroid. Ambitious Hayabusa2 is carrying...

Jupiter Marble from Juno
7.05.2019

What does Jupiter look like up close? Most images of Jupiter are taken from far away, either from Earth or from a great enough distance that nearly half the planet is visible. This shot, though, was composed from images taken relatively close in, where less than half of the planet was visible.