Thirty Thousand Kilometers Above Enceladus
17.03.2008

What does the surface of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus look like? To help find out, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn was sent soaring past the cryovolcanic moon and even right through one of Enceladus' ice plumes. Cassini closed to about 52 kilometers during its closest encounter to date.

Perseid Below
10.08.2012

Denizens of planet Earth watched last year's Perseid meteor shower by looking up into the bright moonlit night sky. But this remarkable view captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan looks down on a Perseid meteor.

The North America Nebula in Infrared
28.07.2019

The North America Nebula can do what most North Americans cannot -- form stars. Precisely where in the nebula these stars are forming has been mostly obscured by some of the nebula's thick dust that is opaque to visible light.

Analemma over the Callanish Stones
18.09.2022

If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun's position change? A more visual answer to that question is an analemma, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year.

X Ray Mystery in RCW 38
27.12.2002

A mere 6,000 light-years distant and sailing through the constellation Vela, star cluster RCW 38 is full of powerful stars. It's no surprise that these stars, only a million years young with hot outer atmospheres, appear as point-like x-ray sources dotting this x-ray image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory.

Particle Sizes in Saturns Rings
25.05.2005

What size particles compose Saturn's rings? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn broadcast radio waves of three different wavelengths right through the rings to Earth earlier this month.

Fireball Over Edmonton
25.11.2008

What if you're driving down the street and an object from space shoots across the sky right in front of you? Such was the case last week for many people in south central Canada.

Spin up of a Supermassive Black Hole
12.03.2013

How fast can a black hole spin? If any object made of regular matter spins too fast -- it breaks apart. But a black hole might not be able to break apart -- and its maximum spin rate is really unknown.

Total Solar Eclipse 2020
7.01.2021

Along a narrow path crossing southern South America through Chile and Argentina, the final New Moon of 2020 moved in front of the Sun on December 14 in the year's only total solar eclipse.

Survivor: NEAR Shoemaker On Asteroid Eros
5.03.2001

Not part of a television game series, the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft survived its unprecedented landing on an on asteroid last month. As suggested in the illustration inset above, the car-sized probe likely rests gently on the tips of its solar panels having touched down under the influence of asteroid Eros' feeble gravity.