A Double Ringed Basin on Mercury
7.10.2009

What created the internal second ring of this double ringed basin on Mercury? No one is sure. The unusual feature spans 160 kilometers and was imaged during the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft's swing past our Solar System's innermost planet last week.

Moon, Mars, and Milky Way
11.08.2018

Just two weeks ago, dark skies over the desert in northern Iran held this alluring celestial vista. The dramatic digital mosaic finds the Moon and Mars alongside the Milky Way's dusty rifts, stars, and nebulae.

Close Encounter with M44
28.01.2015

On Monday, January 26, well-tracked asteroid 2004 BL86 made its closest approach, a mere 1.2 million kilometers from our fair planet. That's about 3.1 times the Earth-Moon distance or 4 light-seconds away. Moving...

Venus and Mercury at Sunset
14.01.2015

Inner planets Venus and Mercury can never wander far from the Sun in Earth's sky. This week you've probably seen them both gathered near the western horizon just after sunset, a close conjunction of bright celestial beacons in the fading twilight.

Crater On Ice
14.07.2000

Impact craters are common on Earth's moon but on Jupiter's large ice moon Europa, they are very rare. Over time, both bodies have been subjected to an intense pounding by the solar system's formative debris, but geological activity on Europa's surface seems to have erased most of these impact scars.

Moons and Jupiter
13.04.2017

On April 10, a Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Both were near opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's night sky. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmmed...

Venus Near the Moon
23.05.2007

The two brightest objects in the night sky appeared to go right past each other last week. On the night of May 19, Earth's Moon and the planet Venus were visible in the same part of the sky, and at closest approach were less than one degree apart.

A Continuous Eruption on Jupiters Moon Io
6.06.2000

A volcano on Jupiter's moon Io has been photographed recently during an ongoing eruption. Hot glowing lava is visible on the left on this representative-color image. A glowing landscape of plateaus and valleys covered in sulfur and silicate rock surrounds the active volcano.

Total Lunar Eclipse from Sydney
28.05.2021

The reddened shadow of planet Earth plays across the lunar disk in this telescopic image taken on May 26 near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. On that crisp, clear autumn night a Perigee Full Moon slid through the northern edge of the shadow's dark central umbra.

Largest Moon of 2009 Over the Alps
13.01.2009

A larger moon will not be seen this year. This past weekend, the largest full Moon of 2009 could be seen from almost any clear location on planet Earth at night. The high angular extent of the full Moon was caused by the Moon being unusually close to Earth during its full phase.