Venus: Just Passing By
25.06.2005

Venus, the second closest planet to the Sun, is by far the brightest of the three planets gathered in this weekend's western sky at sunset. It has also proven to be a popular way-point for spacecraft headed for the gas giant planets in the outer reaches of the solar system. Why visit Venus first?

A Little Like Mars
5.03.2021

The surface of this planet looks a little like Mars. It's really planet Earth though. In a digitally stitched little planet projection, the 360 degree mosaic was captured near San Pedro in the Chilean Atacama desert. Telescopes in domes on the horizon are taking advantage of the region's famously dark, clear nights.

The Moons of Earth
4.05.2002

While orbiting the planet during their June 1998 mission, the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery photographed this view of two moons of Earth. Thick storm clouds are visible in the lovely blue planet...

Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Milk Way
20.05.2020

It is not a coincidence that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in (nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic. When viewed from inside that plane -- as Earth dwellers are likely to do -- the planets all appear confined to a single band.

The Decade that Defined Star System
29.12.1999

As the 1990s began, the only planetary star system known was our own Solar System. The first extra-solar star system was discovered orbiting a pulsar in 1991. Slight changes in the precise arrival times of the pulses from the central small dense neutron star gave evidence of orbiting planets.

The Moons of Earth
30.04.2005

While orbiting the planet during their June 1998 mission, the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery photographed this view of two moons of Earth. Thick storm clouds are visible in the lovely blue planet...

3I/ATLAS Flyby
26.12.2025

Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. This deep exposure captures the comet...

Extra Solar Planetary Atmosphere Detected
28.11.2001

By directly detecting the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System, humanity has taken another small step toward finding extraterrestrial life. The unexpected detection by David Charbonneau (Caltech) and associates came from Hubble Space Telescope observations of Sun-like star HD 209458.

Blue Marble Earth
6.02.2022

Welcome to planet Earth, the third planet from a star named the Sun. The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock. Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water. The planet has a relatively thin atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen.

Moonset Eclipse
1.02.2018

Near the closest point in its orbit, the second Full Moon of the month occurred on January 31. So did the first Total Lunar Eclipse of 2018, as the Moon slid through planet Earth's shadow.