A Mercury Transit Sequence
4.05.2016

This coming Monday, Mercury will cross the face of the Sun, as seen from Earth. Called a transit, the last time this happened was in 2006. Because the plane of Mercury's orbit is not exactly coincident with the plane of Earth's orbit, Mercury usually appears to pass over or under the Sun.

M13: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars
27.07.2016

M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules, M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by curious sky gazers seeking celestials wonders beyond normal human vision.

NGC 6744 Close Up
31.05.2018

Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo, its galactic disk tilted towards our line of sight.

Magnetic Orion
27.02.2019

Can magnetism affect how stars form? Recent analysis of Orion data from the HAWC+ instrument on the airborne SOFIA observatory indicate that, at times, it can. HAWC+ is able to measure the polarization of far-infrared light which can reveal the alignment of dust grains by expansive ambient magnetic fields.

Interstellar Comet 2I Borisov
14.12.2019

From somewhere else in the Milky Way galaxy, Comet 2I/Borisov is just visiting the Solar System. Discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30, 2019, the first known interstellar comet is captured in these two recent Hubble Space Telescope images.

Ingenuity on Sol 39
3.04.2021

The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter, all four landing legs down, was captured here on sol 39 (March 30) slung beneath the belly of the Perseverance rover. The near ground level view is a mosaic of images from the WATSON camera on the rover's SHERLOC robotic arm.

Flying Over the Earth at Night II
23.04.2021

Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from the International Space Station are compiled in this serene video of planet Earth at Night. Fans of low Earth orbit can start by enjoying the view as green and red aurora borealis slather up the sky.

APOD: 2024 August 11 Б Animation: Perseid Meteor Shower
11.08.2024

Where do Perseid meteors come from? Mostly small bits of stony grit, Perseid meteoroids were once expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle and continue to follow this comet's orbit as they slowly disperse. The featured animation depicts the entire meteoroid stream as it orbits our Sun.

APOD: 2026 April 4 Б Hello World
4.04.2026

From pole to pole our fair planet is captured in this snapshot from space, an evocative image from a window of the Orion spacecraft Integrity. From the spacecraft's perspective the Sun is moving behind Earth's bright limb along the lower right.

APOD: 2026 August 28 Б The Sky Turns Above Paranal
28.08.2026

At the latitude of ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth's rotation moves the planet's surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while that's faster than the speed of sound at sea level, the motion is imperceptible.